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- The Road Warrior Mailbag - June 8, 2009
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- The Road Warrior Review - MacCase Premium Leather Flight Jacket For Apple Notebooks
- The Real Revolution of iPhone OS 3.0
- iFixIt Revamps Apple Laptop Teardown Guides; Disassembles 17” MacBook Pro
- Lenovo S10 Beats Out Used PowerBook G4 For Value And HP Launches Stylish Designer “Clutch” Netbook
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- The Road Warrior MailBag - December 15, 2008
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- The Road Warrior Mailbag, December 1, 2008
- The Road Warrior Mailbag - November 17, 2008
- New MacBook Pro A Performer In Spite Of “Questionable” Apple Choices
- Is The End Of Matte Notebook Displays A Problem For You?
- The Road Warrior Mailbag - October 27, 2008
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The Road Warrior Mailbag - May 5, 2008
MacBook Optical Drive Noise On Wakeup
From Darren
I am the "poster child" for a potential MBA user. I currently transport a MBP 2.2 from the office to home and back every day, and at both sites I have an external monitor, a wireless connection, and one USB cord (w/ hub) that I plug in to get my workstation up and running. Generally I use MS office apps (although migrating to 2008 has been difficult), with a mix of other stuff thrown in for good measure. However, the current MBA offering doesn't really work for me, for slightly different reasons than you suggest.
1) 2 GB RAM. For some people, this may be enough, but I often have to fire up VMWare's fusion to access some screen sharing software (or potentially a VBA Excel macro), and 2 GB is just not enough in these circumstances. Take out the 144 MB for video, and 1.8 GB just doesn't get me there, especially with 5 or 6 apps open (mail, safari, word, excel, ppt are minimums). This, by far, is the most significant limitation, and seems so silly given the extremely low prices of RAM these days. Couldn't apple had just gone w/ 4 GB and be done with it?
(As a side note, the migration to Office 2008 has lowered the RAM requirements of Office apps significantly. I know that is due to the lack of Rosetta translation, and it may make 2 GB "sufferable" in these circumstances - although I have found 2008 to be very bug ridden and weakly performing at this point.)
2) 1.8" HD. While the 80 GB capacity is more or less OK for most Office needs, the speed leaves a lot to be desired. Before moving to the Mac, I used a IBM/Lenovo X41T, which had a similar 40 GB drive. The drive was definitely pokey on startup and switching apps, and really hampered what was otherwise an excellent design. I am sure the 80 GB is a bit faster, but during some time using the Air at an Apple store, I found this to be a big detractor. Combined with more memory page outs due to the aforementioned 2 GB ceiling, this is a significant, deal stopper issue. (I do realize that the SSD is available, but it's way out of my price range.)
Those are the two main detractors--honestly, I could live with one, but not both. Things that have gotten lots of press, like the lack of FireWire, ExpressCard slot, or removable battery, are just not major issues for those that commute with their laptop. Sure, I miss them, but they are really not part of my daily work flow. Even the 1.6 Ghz processor is serviceable - sure it will be slower, but is it really that noticeable compared to the 2.2?
My wife has an original MBP with a 2.0 Core Duo, and most benchmarks put the Air on par with that machine. From a processor perspective, the Core Duo is more than fast enough for general office tasks, so I can't imagine that the MBA would be noticeably slower in that regard.
If Apple corrected those two main deficiencies, I think I would be first in line to pick up a MBA v2.
Hi Darren;
I agree with you on both points, and I did mention them briefly in the article, although my main focus was on what it likely to come with the MacBook Air Revision B, which I'm expecating to be mainly a switch to Penryn-based COUs.
I'm currently running a 1.33 Ghz 17" PowerBook with 1.5 GB of RAM and an 80 GB 4,200 RPM hard drive, and neither spec. is really enough.
I often have 20 or more applications open (although I don't use MS Office and avoid Microsoft software in general unless there is absolutely no alternative), and I expect that 2 GB on a MacBook or MacBook Air would be even less satisfactory than 1.5 GB on the G4, what with the Intel architecture and vampire video on the MacBook machines. Unfortunately, Apple has always tended to be stingy with standard RAM.
And from what I've been reading, the SSD option, even if the cost were not prohibitive, doesn't offer much performance gain over the conventional hard drive in the MacBook Air. It's advantage is no moving parts.
Charles
MacBook Optical Drive Noise On Wakeup
From ncousmc
Hi Charles,
After a long sabbatical from the Mac world (three years) I have gone ahead and bought a black Penryn Macbook. I do have a quibble with my purchase- the DVD drive makes an ejection (whirring) sound whenever I wake the laptop from sleep. Is this normal?
I have owned a Pismo and a 550 Titanium PowerBook (still have both but currently have not been powered on in a while) and they have never made this sound.
Hi;
Welcome back to the Mac.
I expect the behavior you describe is normal. In my experience, some Mac laptops do it and others don't. My first Pismo didn't until I installed a firmware upgrade, after which the original tray-type DVD-ROM drive started making not only a momentary whir upon wake-up or startup, but also kicking the disk tray open. This was annoying until I upgraded to slot-loading SuperDrives, which still make the sound.
I've gotten so used to it that I hadn't really thought much about it for years.
My G3 iBook also momentarily activates its CD-ROM drive upon startup, but mercifully doesn't open the tray. My G4 PowerBook doesn't do it.
Charles
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part 4
Last time I wrote about how I am fulfilling orders for my new book myself, ordering printed copies in bulk from Lulu and personally mailing them out. No, I won't get rich selling books this way, but it is kind of fun and I like the control I have over the process.
This is where the self-publishing process gets interesting. There are many ways to publish a book, and even within the narrower field of self-publishing there are multiple approaches you can take. I had to answer many of these questions as I developed my book project, so let me share with you my experience and thoughts.
Fulfillment is one aspect to consider. As I mentioned last time, I chose self-fulfillment because of the increased control I have even though it's more work and can be more complicated to set up. If you're not interested in that, you can just sell books directly through the store Lulu gives you on their site.
Here are some things you should consider when mulling the fulfillment and self-publishing questions:
How many books are you hoping to sell? If it's hundreds, self-fulfillment's an option. For thousands, it may not be. You might not know the quantity of books you'll sell. It could be ten or a thousand; you have no idea. The type of book makes a huge difference. Fiction, for instance, is a hard sell via self-publishing. Unless you're already established as an author or have a fan-base of some sort, it's tough to get word out about your novel. Books that teach how to do something are easier to promote, but no matter what, unless you're really good at self-promotion, self-publishing isn't going to sell as many copies as traditional wide-market publishing (but it could be more profitable). The bottom line: it's a total guess. My advice is don't count on a certain number because you'll probably be disappointed if you don't reach it.
What's your schedule like? I work from home and already handle orders for my other businesses, so shipping out a few book orders is not a problem at all. If you're working full-time already, self-fulfillment might be more of a hassle than it's worth.
What kind of publicity do you have planned? You should factor publicity timing into the equation: after a promotion or other publicity, you might be deluged with orders and it could be more than you can handle yourself. Of course that's a nice problem to have, but you don't want to alienate customers, so keep such things in mind.
What's your profit margin? This is the key question with self-publishing. With traditional publishing, you're paid a small percentage of the total price -- as little as ten or twenty percent! That means for a $20 book you'll earn a mere two bucks. With a traditional publisher putting marketing clout behind the product you might actually sell thousands of copies and make a little money -- but there are no guarantees. With self-publishing you can keep the bulk of the profits yourself (say 50%). Making $10 on that $20 book sounds a lot better, doesn't it? Even if you only sell 500 books, that could be more money than the traditional route. In terms of self-fulfillment, you can increase that profit market even higher -- at the cost of more labor for you.
Do you have start-up money? To do the fulfillment yourself, you need to buy books in advance. While that sort of spoils the point of print-on-demand (POD), you do have the luxury of being able to buy books in much smaller quantities than with traditional printing. With traditional printing you need to print several thousand books to be cost effective, and more will bring the per-book cost even lower. With POD you can print a mere 25 or 100 books and reorder as needed. Your cost-per-book is much higher than traditional publishing, but it's less money up front.
As you can see from the following table, when the quantity reaches a thousand, you might be better off with traditional printing. (Note: these prices are not official, but proportional to real numbers, and don't include things like shipping.)
| Quantity | Cost Per Book | Total Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional | 1,000 | $5 | $5,000 |
| 2,500 | $3 | $7,500 | |
| 5,000 | $2 | $10,000 | |
| Print-on-Demand | 100 | $7 | $700 |
| 500 | $6 | $3,000 | |
| 1,000 | $5 | $5,000 |
For my purposes, POD seemed like a good way to go as I could dive in without a lot of start-up expense. I have no idea what the interest in my book will be. It's a hot topic -- weight loss -- so if demand caught on, it could sell a lot of copies. But it's a hugely competitive market, I'm not exactly a household name, and I'm not very good at marketing, so it's equally possibly I'll have trouble selling a couple hundred copies. Who knows?
The nice thing about working with Lulu is they let me easily test the water and gauge interest. If the book is a hit (so far the people who have bought it have liked it) I can always switch to the traditional publishing route and order a few thousand copies on faith that they will sell.
Don't forget facilities. If you want to handle fulfillment yourself, keep in mind your working environment. Do you have storage facilities for all those books? How are you set up for printing mailing labels and shipping products? Such tasks are not difficult, but they can be annoying if you don't have a convenient area to work with all your supplies handy.
More to Consider
Of course there are still other options to explore, in particular the idea of selling your book in retail stores or via online sellers such as Amazon. We'll explore that next time.
Next Time: Marc explores the retail and Amazon approach
(Since I am shamelessly promoting my book in this series, I'm offering a special discount: you can save $2 on my book via promo code macopinion.)
MacBook Air Revision B Wish List
Besides the time line, the operative question is how extensive the refreshments Revision B will be. Certainly there is plenty of room for improvement. I've read what must be dozens of MacBook Air reviews over the past four months, and even the most enthusiastic Air-heads (sorry, couldn't resist
) almost invariably qualify their effusive praise with a list of shortcomings that have to be rationalized or worked around.Personally, I think the Air is pretty cool. I like small computers. However, there are a whole raft of reasons why I wouldn't seriously consider and Air as an adequate solution to my computing needs. It would be fun to have one has a road machine, but the Air is just not suited to desktops substitute workstation duty or to serving as one's primary computer.
Can Apple "fix" the MacBook Air to a degree that I would be tempted? Not very likely. However, it may be possible to address some of the functionality criticisms of users for whom the Air in principle suits their style and meets their requirements. So let's look at some specific areas that might be breathed-on and tweaked in Revision B.
Speed:
From the perspective of someone like myself who is still mostly happily getting along with a 1.33 GHz G4 machine, no Core 2 Duo Mac can be considered "slow," but many folks who have become accustomed to MacIntel speed have characterized the Air as more than a bit sluggish compared with the MacBook Pr and even made considerably less expensive MacBook. This is partly attributable to be downsized Core 2 Duo chips used in the Air, but also the poky 4200- RPM iPod Classic type hard drive in the Air's Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics system that is shared with the MacBook and Mac mini.
The Air's 1.6 GHz and 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU s are currently 65 nm technology units based on the same generation as the now - superseded "Santa Rosa" "Merom" Core 2 Duos that were used in the larger MacBooks. A reasonable expectation would be that Revision B of the MacBook Air will have processor chips based on Intel's 45 nm technology "Penryn" Core 2 Duos, although with probably not much of the clock speed bump if any at all, but the more efficient Penryn should result in a performance boost even at carry-over clock speeds. The 45 nm chipset technology also can be expected to reduce heat generation and extend battery life, the latter particularly important for the Air with its non swappable battery.
Indeed, a switch to "Penryn" CPUs may play out to be the only major element of the first MacBook Air refreshments, but I hope not. I don't anticipate that the GMA X3100 graphics will be upgraded this time, since it was carried over for the Penryn MacBooks, but Intel's next-generation "Montevina" Core 2 Duo CPUs will reportedly feature faster new GMA X4500HD integrated graphics support than the current GMA X3100 and a lower power chipset. The GMA X4500HD will add full hardware H.264 decode acceleration, which will enable native hardware support for high-definition entertainment using Blu-ray drive, and better Blu-Ray performance on battery power, although I don't anticipate Blue-ray coming to the MacBook Air anytime soon.
I also doubt that much will be done about hard drive response Or the maximum 80 gigabyte capacity which is not really adequate for a front line workhorse computer these days. The 160 gigabyte 2.5-inch drive from the iPod Classic is too thick to fit inside the MacBook Air's case, and one thing I definitely do not expect in the short to medium term is a major case redesign.
Consequently, the Air will continue to lag behind its larger siblings in terms of speed and responsiveness.
It would be nice to think that Apple might apply some engineering effort to remedying what in many respects is the MacBook Air's most glaring shortcoming - that single, overworked, USB 2.0 port. The Air really needs a second USB port in the worst way, since so many connectivity functions depend on USB in the absence of FireWire and Ethernet, but I think we will have to wait for a later and more substantial revision to get relief here. Speaking of the lack of built-in FireWire and Ethernet (and optional $29 Ethernet to USB adapter dongle is offered), they are difficult to excuse and to live with, but once again I don't even remotely expect that there will be any change there in the next Air revision.
The same for the lack of a easily removable battery and a RAM expansion slot. There seems to be little likelihood that the current MacBook Air case and motherboard design can accommodate either, so it will take a major redesign if Apple is to remedy those issues.
The take-it-or-leave-it 2 GB of RAM is modestly respectable, for now, although given that I don't find 1.5 GB nearly enough with my much less demanding 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook, I'm not at all optimistic that I would be satisfied with two gigs on a MacIntel, especially with 144 MB of it being siphoned away by the GMA X3100 graphics support.
However, I'm inclined to think that in the fullness of time Apple may be persuaded to add more connectivity, expandability and versatility to the MacBook Air to keep sales percolating once early adopter enthusiasm has ebbed. The original iBook had no FireWire and just one USB port - deficiencies that were addressed in later models. I'm not optimistic that the MacBook Air will ever get FireWire, but I'll be surprised if there isn't a dual-USB MacBook Air in the future - just not this time.
Good things about the MacBook Air that will be sustained are its light weight but still with a reasonably large display and a full-sized, backlit keyboard. It looks nice too of course, although I simply can't fathom what they were thinking with the black key caps.
For folks with modest hardware demands and willing to put up with the MacBook Air's manifold compromises, it will no doubt be a pleasant and satisfying little road warrioring machine, and whatever performance and power efficiency enhancements Penryn chips will provide will be a plus, but not nearly enough to make the Air an adequate primary, production computer? Not even close.
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part 3
In the first couple parts of this series I discussed my interest in self-publishing and some problems I ran into with Lulu, the print-on-demand (POD) service I selected.
But despite my complaints (and some other issues, like the upload feature of their website not working well with Safari), the end result proved to be terrific. The quality of the book is excellent. The cover quality is outstanding, with a glossy finish that protects the book, and the black-and-white insides are fine. Text is surprisingly high-quality, even with small type and fine typefaces.
While the black-and-white photos inside aren't too clear or sharp, that's due to the digital printing process and limitations of my own artwork and was no worse than I expected. In short, I never expected the black-and-white photos to reproduce that well inside, which is part of the reason I sell print copies of the book with a complimentary PDF edition. In the PDF the photos are in full color, which makes a lot more sense for a cooking book with food photos.
I could have chosen to have the book printed full-color inside, but it would have been outrageously expensive. With Lulu color printing is an all-or-nothing option: even though there are only pictures on a few dozen pages in the book the entire thing would have had to be printed in color. That would have dramatically increased the cost of the book. Instead of retailing the book for a reasonable $16, the book would have had to sell for at least $35 to keep the same profit market -- that's a lot of extra to pay for a few color pictures!
I find it odd that Lulu doesn't let you mix color and black-and-white pages inside. With traditional printing that makes sense as books are printed on signatures (large sheets of paper with multiple pages per sheet, folded and trimmed to create a small section of the overall book) and all the pages of a signature must use the same printing process. But with digital each page is produced individually (at least in theory; I have no insight into exactly how Lulu's printing process works) so mixing color and black-and-white should be possible. It would complicate things so I can see why they don't offer it, but for certain kinds of projects it would be nice to have the option.
For my needs, the Lulu process has worked well. The printing and binding quality is excellent. Delivery was a little longer than ideal (it took about two weeks) but that was because I ordered over 100 books which takes longer than a single book order (which usually ship in a few days).
The packaging was a bit overdone. For small orders it makes sense and really protects your order, but for many copies of the same book like I ordered it is inefficient and environmentally wasteful. The books arrived via UPS in seven cartons; each large box contained a couple smaller boxes. Inside those were shrink-wrapped collections of books, and each collection of three to five books was inside a cushioned envelope. So for each set of twenty books I ended up with six sleeves, two cardboard backings, plastic wrap, two inner boxes, and a larger cardboard shipping box. While it's good to protect my order, that's a lot of excess. I think it is obvious Lulu is not set up for bulk orders.
Overall, though, I am happy with the process. I could have saved myself hassle by just having Lulu fulfill the orders, but I chose to do it myself. This means more work, but more control. For instance, I had to set up my own shopping cart system. I chose the terrific and inexpensive E-Junkie service, which will automatically ship each customer a unique link to the digital edition for immediate downloading. Payment is handled via Paypal, which works well. I am sent an email of the order and I simply print out a mailing label and ship off the book in a Priority Mail envelope. The customer already has their PDF edition, so the order's complete. Best of all, because I am handling everything myself, I am free to offer bundles with other products I sell or discounts.
(Speaking of discounts, since I am shamelessly promoting my book in this series, I offer you a special discount: you can save $2 on my book via promo code macopinion. Isn't that nice of me?)
Next Time: Marc the pros and cons of the self-publishing process.
From The Road Warrior Archive: TiBook vs. Cube As Portable Desktop Replacement
CM
From The Road Warrior Archive TiBook vs. Cube As Portable Desktop Replacement [Originally Published February 5, 2001]
Last July when Apple introduced the Cube, I wrote a Road Warrior column suggesting that the Cube would have some merit as a portable machine. Few agreed with me, but I think some may have missed my point, which was not that the Cube would make a viable PowerBook substitute (for one thing it lacks battery power), but rather that it is the first desktop Mac since the Classic and Color Classic were discontinued that can be reasonably regarded as "luggable."
Longtime Mac users will recall that the original, 17 pound, compact Macs were available with a carry case, and many Mac-heads did carry them around to Mac User Group meetings, or back and forth to school and work. While the complete kit weighed something in excess of 20 pounds, portability was possible, and I have even seen a photo of someone transporting one on a bicycle.
A Cube, along with a 15" Apple Studio Display LCD monitor, and a keyboard and mouse, and its big, clunky power supply, is at least in the same ballpark weight and bulk wise as those old compact Macs, and is likewise a practical proposition for lugging. An iMac with its bulbous shape and 35 pound weight plus peripherals is emphatically not.
And indeed, for folks like myself who use PowerBooks mainly as desktop substitutes, and rarely move them very far, A Cube really is a potential alternative. For my purposes, the biggest practical disadvantage of the Cube, versus a PowerBook, is the aforementioned lack of battery power. Living out in the boonies, as I do, the battery can save your bacon during power outages.
Willow, the Canadian specialist in Mac backpacks and cases, has just made the argument for the Cube as a portable Mac more convincing with the release of their new http://www.willowdesign.com/NL-29.html Cube & 15" Flat Panel Display Carry Case .
This case, as its name indicates, will hold a Cube, a 15" Flat Panel Display and all the other components of a Cube setup. Everything is protected by sturdy outer foam walls reinforced with corrugated plastic plus a hardboard bottom. There are dividers to separate the Cube, Flat Panel Display, power supply, speakers, mouse, keyboard and cables, allowing you to fit this entire desktop system into a manageable size package giving excellent protection.
Feature details:
• Protection for your entire system afforded by 1.2cm (0.5") foam reinforced by corrugated plastic on five sides with 8mm (1/4") hardboard on the bottom.
• Extra protection for the display screen afforded by three layers of corrugated plastic with internal 1.2cm (0.5") foam spacers to isolate the screen from the edge of the case.
• internal protection ensured by separate compartments for the Cube, 15" Flat Panel Display, power supply, speakers, keyboard, mouse and accessories.
• Velcro lockdown system for the horizontal divider to ensure that hardware components below can not shift around.
• Velcro tab to lock horizontal divider up and out of way to facilitate loading and unloading your gear.
• Handy mesh pocket in the lid for safe and convenient storage of the Cube keyboard.
• substantial extra material storage space set above the lower hardware level plus a manual or paper slot pocket built into the bottom level.
• Luggage feet riveted through the hardboard bottom of the case which actually keep it up and off the ground when you want to set the case down whilst entering and leaving your vehicle.
• Secure wrap handle straps with paddle hand grip.
• Riveted, high density polyethylene reinforced end handles to make it easier loading and unloading the case into vehicles or to share the load with another person.
• Contoured, thickly padded shoulder strap with heavy duty snaphooks for secure carrying.
• Handy 25mm web strap and quick release buckle on the back of the case to lock the case on to hand carts for easier carrying.
• Construction sturdy enough to allow double stacking of cases on hand carts for easier trade show or demonstration transportation.
• Available Colours: Black, Charcoal, Navy, Teal. Purple
The Cube & 15" Flat Panel Display Carry Case sells for $330.00 Cdn. (about $220.00 U.S.) plus UPS Ground rates to the United States of 25.00 US ($37.50 Cdn).
At 7.9 lb, this case puts the weight of the whole package over 30 pounds, but it's still portable. Also note well that this case is too large to be accepted as carry-on aircraft luggage. Frequent fliers will definitely be a lot better off with a PowerBook.
So how does the Cube stack up directly in comparison with the TiBook?
Price:
TiBook 400 MHz - $2,595
TiBook 500 MHz - $3,495
Cube 450 MHz with 15" Apple Studio Display - $1,499/$799/total - $2,298
Cube 500 MHz with 15" Apple Studio Display - $1,999/$799 total - $2,798
Weight:
No contest here!
TiBook - 5.3 pounds
Cube - 14 pounds; monitor - 11.5 pounds; power supply about three pounds; plus speakers, keyboard, and mouse. The whole rig is about 28 pounds plus the weight of a carry case.
It might be possible to substitute a five-pound http://www.sony.com/displays Sony LCD1525X 15 inch monitor for the Apple one. The Sony has an analog interface, and the Cube has a VGA port. (more information on the feasibility of this would be welcome). However, it's a pricy option. The Sony screen sells for $1,299.
TiBook advantages:
• Base unit comes with 128 MB RAM, vs. 64 MB for base Cube
• Much smaller size and lower weight
• Battery power
• 3:2 aspect ratio display format 1152 x 768
• Cardbus slot
• Infrared port
• Built-in keyboard and trackpad
Cube advantages:
• Entry-level model is 50 MHz faster
• Comes with full size keyboard and mouse
• 450 MHz/15-inch Studio Display combo is $300 cheaper than the low end TiBook.
• 500 MHz unit/15-inch Studio Display combo is $700 cheaper than the high end TiBook.
• 20 gigabyte hard drives standard on low end machine vs. 10 GB for low-end TiBook
• 16 Mb of VRAM vs. 8 MB for TiBook
• Two FireWire ports
• Supports RAM up to 1.5 gigabytes vs. 1 gigabyte for the TiBook
• Harmon Kardon speakers
With the lower price and somewhat richer feature set, the Cube/15" Display combo offers a lot of value for folks who don't absolutely need laptop lightness and portability.
Once again, this article is not intended is set up a dialectic opposition between the titanium PowerBook and the Cube, but rather to highlight the respective strengths of both machines. Personally, as regular readers know, I am mightily smitten by the TiBook, which is very much the current Apple of my eye, and as much as I admire the styling of the Cube, the all-of-a-piece compactness of the PowerBook appeals to me greatly, as does the 3:2 screen.
On the other hand, Chris's argument about your investment in a freestanding monitor staying with you when you upgrade is well taken, and there's that sound system. You can't go wrong with either of these choices.
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part 2
I've been a professional graphic designer for decades so I figured the process of preparing the book for print would be easy, but unfortunately I ran into some snags. The service I chose to use is Lulu. They are not the largest but are highly regarded and have excellent terms of use. You can print your book through them absolutely for free: you only need to pay if you want distribution of your book via Amazon and other sellers and the cost is low ($99 minimum). They even give you a free webstore to sell your book on their site.
There's a lot to like about Lulu: their process is quite automated, there's a vibrant community, there's lots of information on the process on their website, and they are generous with their terms allowing you to publish your book elsewhere at the same time if you want (some Print-On-Demand companies want exclusivity).
Unfortunately, my impressions of Lulu went downhill when I began researching the details of the publishing process. For one, there is almost too much information on their site. Publishing is complicated and there are hundreds of FAQs split among thousands of pages: I spent many hours reading through their site trying to understand all of the available options and procedures. Information overload was high, but the documentation still has gaps. In places the docs contradict themselves, with one page saying one thing and another saying something else. In other places the text just isn't clear, leaving you with ambiguous answers. The docs are also geared toward amateurs, not professionals, with pages of instructions for creating PDFs out of programs like Microsoft Word and not a one about the settings to use in professional-level software like Adobe InDesign (which actually give you a lot more options for PDF-creation and thus need specifications).
A key flaw in Lulu's website documentation is that the website really is designed for two utterly different groups of people: publishers, who are wanting to produce and sell content, and consumers, who simply want help buying a book from the site. Both sets of instructions are lumped together into a giant FAQ system which is confusing. As a publisher I expect it to be somewhat complicated for me, but I've got to imagine that the site would be really confusing for a simple consumer wanting to buy a book and running into a problem. Lulu really should separate the tech documents and have publisher information in a clearly delineated section (possibly walled off and requiring a login).
The next problem was when I attempted to get additional help. Initially I was pleased to see that Lulu offers free live chat support. But that was before I used it. Frankly, Lulu's support people are some of the rudest and dumbest people I've ever encountered. The "live chat" system is extremely slow with them taking several minutes to respond, which ruins the whole point of an interactive conversation. They might as well use email. (I finally figured out that they are apparently interacting with multiple people at once which explains why it takes them several minutes to answer to an "Hello? Are you there?" query.)
The support techs' main problem is that they do not actually know anything: their every answer is simply to point you to the "correct" page on their website. While that might be good enough for some people, I'd already spent days combing the site for answers that weren't there. When I pointed out the page they indicated doesn't actually answer my question, it's another five minute wait only to be pointed to another page that doesn't help. Much of the time they utterly failed to understand my questions, answering something completely different from what I asked.
Another time they promised an expert would contact me in a few days; they never did and it delayed my project for a week while I waited for them to respond.
Some of Lulu's "solutions" to my problems were also odd. For example, I wanted to find out the price of shipping books to me. Though I can sell books via Lulu's website, one of my plans was to buy small quantities of the books in advance and sell them myself on my own website, that way I can bundle the book with other products. But all of Lulu's shipping info on their website is about book buyers, not book publishers, and doesn't say anything about the shipping costs of ordering books in quantity. When I asked a support rep for a shipping quote I was told, "Find another book on the site that's similar in size and page count to yours and add it to your shopping cart. Then change the quantity to the amount you wish to order. Then you can use the checkout system to get a shipping estimate. Just don't actually complete the purchase or else you'll buy a bunch of someone else's book!"
Hmmm. That's an example of something that works perfectly fine, but is definitely overly complicated. The site has all kinds of web-based calculators for computing the cost of your book based on your specs: why not do the same for a shipping estimate?
This kind of thing epitomizes the problems with Lulu: if your project fits within their standard specifications and you don't want anything unusual, the system works. The moment you start to customize anything or want to anything possibly non-standard, you run into a brick wall.
But worst of all, there's no other kind of support for Lulu: no phone numbers, no email address, not even a manager to escalate your problem with. This is extremely frustrating and troublesome. Even more alarming, this same system is what your potential buyers would run into if they attempted to buy books direct from Lulu. This made me shy away from using Lulu's website for sales. Not only do I have give up a percentage of my profits from each sale to pay for the Lulu store, but with such poor customer service I worry they would alienate my customers. I decided that though it costs me more upfront, I would be much better off to pre-buy books in quantity and sell them myself. That way I'm providing the customer service and any failings are my own fault.
Another issue with Lulu is that publishers don't get any special treatment. Sure, you can buy copies of your book at cost, but that's it. For many people who just want to use Lulu's service to produce a dozen books for family members or a small group, that make sense, but for someone who has a "real" book project and anticipates selling hundreds of copies of a book, a little consideration might be helpful. For example, the site encourages you to buy a proof copy of your book before you begin selling it just to make sure everything's correct.
That's good advice, of course, but with Lulu's sluggish turnaround time on book printing that can seriously delay your project. In my case it took nearly ten working days to receive my proof copy. I could have had paid for priority service to receive it in two days -- but that would have cost an outrageous $100 for one copy of my book!
A publisher's proof copy ought to receive some special treatment: perhaps you pay a little more for the rush printing (say double the normal cost) and whatever shipping costs you are willing to incur, and Lulu could limit this to just the initial copy or two and maybe even require you to commit to purchasing a certain minimum later (in my case I placed a $1,000 order couple weeks later so it was an insult to expect me to pay $100 for a proof copy).
Granted, Lulu doesn't charge anything to publish a book, so it makes sense they can't offer much, but a little cooperation would be appreciated by serious publishers.
Next Time: Marc talks about what Lulu does right.
Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part 1
When I first got involved with the revolution of "desktop publishing" in the late 1980s, the most frequent comment on the new technology was the old A.J. Liebling quote:
"Freedom of Press belongs to those who own one."
The idea, of course, was that being able to create books on your home computer and laser printer was like having your own printing press. That was revolutionary, but as people soon realized, having your own press did not eliminate the high costs of printing and did not solve the distribution problem. Longer works like books still required additional manual steps such as binding, and the quality of home-produced printing was not as good as traditional offset printing.
In the 1990s the Internet came into popularity and suddenly there was a new way to publish. Today millions of people have their own virtual presses via blogs and websites, revolutionizing communication and publishing. But such technology has its own limitations: for longer formats and certain kinds of material, reading online is inconvenient and awkward, and until a cheap and lightweight portable reader is invented (I'm not counting Amazon's horrible Kindle), the printed book will remain popular.
So nothing has really changed: if you want to publish your own book, you're still stuck with traditional publishing channels. You can either hope that a publisher will like your book enough to take all the risks and print and distribute your book for you and give you a slim ten to twenty percent of the revenue, or you can self-publish by paying the offset printing costs in advance and hope you'll sell all the books you print.
Of course because publishing is so expensive few publishers want to take any risks, which is why there are so many similar books out there. (When a book about a boy wizard is a hit, there are sudden dozens of books about wizard children. Yet don't forget that original boy wizard book was initially rejected by dozens of timid publishers.) If you want to target a niche market, forget it: publishers aren't interested. There just isn't enough money in a small market for publishers to bother.
So with all this new technology we're right back where we started. Sure, we can now do the design and layout ourselves, but it does us no good in getting our book published.
Or does it?
In recent years several vendors have come on the market offering "print-on-demand" (POD) services. The concept sounds like a dream come true: each copy of your book is manufactured upon order, eliminating the high cost of entry of traditional publishing where you must print thousands of copies in advance and hope you can sell them.
As a writer I've been tremendously interested in these services, but some of the early ones charged significant up-front fees (too much for casual experimenting) and some had Draconian contracts where they essentially took over your copyright. Newer companies have fixed some of these restrictions, but I hadn't yet tested them with a project.
Now my main business these days is in publishing: I produce a bimonthly magazine, REALbasic Developer. It's definitely a product in a niche market, geared to users of the REALbasic programming environment. For years I've dreamed of producing books on REALbasic programming, but the costs were always too great to justify the small market. However, with print-on-demand, maybe it could work.
Then about 18 months ago I ended up in the hospital with my health scare: pancreatitis and diabetes. That prompted a revolution in my lifestyle. I began to learn about food and promptly lost 75 pounds. Everyone wanted to know how I did it, of course, and I would talk people's ears off with my lengthly explanations. But after the tenth or twelfth person asked me when my book was coming out, I decided they had a good point. Why not put my experience and techniques into a book? I wouldn't expect to sell a million copies or anything: I'd just publish it myself. It would be a great way to test-drive the whole print-on-demand concept.
Over the next few months I began writing the book, revising it significantly as I thought of new ideas and changing the structure occasionally. I did it on the side and it took longer than I expected, as at times my motivation waned. (It turns out it's a lot of work to create a book. Who knew?) The final bits of the process took the longest as I had to make key decisions and learn about the the POD publishing process.
Next Time: Marc talks about the self-publishing process.
The Road Warrior Review: Wegener Media 8x SuperDrive Upgrade Kit For Pismo (and Lombard) PowerBooks
How things have changed! While some have suggested that the optical drive-less MacBook Air (an external dual-layer USB 2 SuperDrive is a "99 option) my be the thin edge of the wedge, so to speak of an optical drive-less future, as the floppyless iMac proved to be in that context back in 1999, I'm doubtful that's the case. The only potentially adequate substitute for a recordable media drive for serious computing would be USB flash drives, and they may prevail in the long run, but the CD and DVD aren't going to go the way of the floppy anytime soon, although I personally prefer an external hard drive for data backups, and 700 MB burnable CDs are now at the low end of the recordable media scale. For burnable media data backup, you need a "SuperDrive" DVD-burning drive that will allow you to store 4.7 gigabytes of your stuff on one, single-layer disk, or twice that much on dual-layer disks.
Disk-burning aside for a moment, a fairly frequent question I receive from readers is what to do about malfunctioning DVD-ROM drives in Pismo PowerBooks. The Pismo is a great old laptop — my two are both still in active duty - and there are lots of them out there still going strong and giving their usually satisfied users faithful service, but one of the Pismo's few weak points iis its tray-loading DVD-ROM drive, which is - how shall we say? - not especially robust, and keeping it real, the newest Pismos are now more than seven years old.
My advice is usually to get a combo drive or SuperDrive module to replace the OEM DVD-ROM drive. One of the the coolest features of the Pismo is that its optical drive is in a removable expansion bay module, which makes swapping drives a 20-second operation. Just pull the release lever, pop out whatever module is in the expansion bay, slide in the new drive module, and you're done.
As it happens, my own Pismo's original DVD-ROM drive still works fine, but I long since replaced it with an 8x SuperDrive module from FastMac. A SuperDrive is am upgrade I heartily recommend whether or not your stock DVD-ROM drive has packed it in. Besides the FastMac unit, which is excellent, Wegener Media also offers an 8x SuperDrive upgrade for the Pismo (also fits the earlier PowerBook G3 Bronze Lombard which has an identical expansion bay configuration) that does a fine job of burning both CDs and DVDs, also reads both categories of disk, is bootable, and is a slick slot-loader to boot. A 2x version is also available for ten bucks less, but I strongly recommend going with the 8x model.
Wegeners have recently made substantial proce drops on all of their lines of Pismo/Lombard optical drives, and the The 8x SuperDrive kit that I tested for this review as a drive module with faceplate, installation kit, and instructions (specs.: 8x DVDR+/-,24x CDR,24x CDRW, 8x DVD, 24x CDROM Dual-layer) now sells for a modest $139.99, which is 10 bucks cheaper than any other 8x Pismo drive upgrade kit I know of. All electronics are brand new and you'll only be recycling your existing expansion bay module frame.
If you'd rather not touble yourself with the few minutes of work it takes to install the kit, the 8x SuperDrive, same technical specs. as above, but as a complete drive module (just slide in and use), is now $ 159.99, and you can still get $40 back if you send your old DVD-ROM unit back to Wegeners.
And if you want to upgrade your RAM while you're in the hotrodding zone, Wegeners also offer the 8X SuperDrive Kit bundled with 1 GB of RAM for the Pismo for $219.99, or $30 off regular separate pricing.
There is also a 2x SuperDrive kit (2x DVDR,16x CDR,10x CDRW, 8x DVD, 24x CD) - drive with faceplate, installation kit,iand instructions available for $99.99, or as a complete drive you can just slide in and use for $109.99 ($40 core rebate when you send your dead unit back.). The 2x SuperDrive kit with 1GB of bundled RAM (for Pismo) is $179.99
For more information, visit:
http://wegenermedia.com/pismooffercombos.htm
and
http://www.wegenermedia.com/pismoslotdrives.htm
However, if you would like to save money, get the a do-it-yourself installation kit with faceplate. The kit requires a simple installation that takes only a few minutes, and a photo guide is included.
If you don't already have a small (#0) Philips screwdriver, your can order one with the kit for an additional $4.49.
To install the SuperDrive unit, just remove the four small Philips screws on the left and right sides of the drive module that secure the original DVD-ROM drive unit to the expansion bay sled and slide the drive out.
Make sure you remember which screws came out of which side because they aare different lengths. Grasp the old DVD drive while holding the plastic drive sled housing with your other hand and slide the mechanism completely out of the plastic sled.
Then just slide the Superdrive module into the sled until the four screw holes line up and replace the screws, gently tighten them, and you're done!
All that's left is to slide the drive module into the Pismo's expansion bay and you're ready to burn or play.
The Wegener Media 8X SuperDrive module for Pismo's innards are a DVD RAM Matsushita UJ835S burner unit that supports CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R, and DVD+RW. It also features Buffer Underrun Protection in both CD and DVD modes.
This Wegener upgrade burns DVDs at 8x speed (that is 8 times faster than Apple's original "SuperDrive") and rewrites DVDs at 4x speed. It also writes to DVD-RAM discs at 3x speed, CD-Rs at 24x speed, and CD-RWs at 10x speed -- essentially equivalent to the SuperDrives offered in late model PowerBook (The final, October, 2005 revisions of the PowerBook 15" and 17" have an 8x SuperDrive with dual-layer support) and the MacBook Pro. Indeed, it is the same Matsushita (Panasonic) UJ-825 internal mechanism, I understand.
The 8x SuperDrive changes the appearance of the right front corner of the Pismo slightly, and it doesn't quite have the tailored look of the OEM drive, but it looks perfectly fine to me.
The unit has performed flawlessly for me, and is of course much faster than the Pismo's original DVD-ROM drive (which is playback only). You can burn a complete 4.7 GB DVD in under 10 minutes.
I've found nothing much to complain about with the Wegener Media 8x SuperDrive unit. It "just works." THe drive is bootable, and is compatable with iTunes, CDBurner, Toast, Burnz, Burn Again DVD, and of course the OS X Finder. Wegeners say it's compatible with Mac OS9 .2, OSX Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger. I can confirm that it works great with Tiger, and I wouldn't anticipate any problems with Leopard, if one has an unsupported install of OS 10.5 on their Pismo, but I can't vouch for that from experience.
As I said, this is an upgrade I can recommend, especially with the recent price reductions, to anyone who wants to rejuvinate their Pismo or Lombard with up-to-date disk-burning capability, or to just replace a dodgy DVD-ROM drive. I actually do most of my disk-burning on my Pismos because the 8X drive is faster than the 2x unit in my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4.
For more information, visit:
http://www.wegenermedia.com/pismoslotdrives.htm
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Too Many Icons
Recently I saw a video of the upcoming Blackberry 9000. You know, the one that looks like an iPhone? This is apparently RIM's answer to Apple's innovation -- a cheap clone that's Zune-worthy in its blatant imitation.
Obviously the thing's hopelessly useless and nothing like an iPhone in functionality, but RIM's just hoping a few people will buy one by accident and that by at least having their own "similar" phone they can assuage the fears of their stockholders that they are trying to compete.
But there was one thing about the device that struck me as fascinating and is a telling example of the design mistakes companies make. Steve Jobs once famously said: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
On some levels, this seems painfully obvious -- and yet companies consistently ignore it. What's hilarious is the way companies can't tell that is what Apple is doing and when they copy Apple, they only copy the visual aspects and forget the the "how it works" part.
For examples, just look at colors. Apple started a trend of colorful computers and electronic devices: now everyone has to offer media players and laptops and digital cameras and phones and even TVs in a variety of colors. But why did Apple add colors? Was it just eye candy and a marketing gimmick?
Steve Jobs' genius was not coming up with the idea of colorful computers, but the realization that computers were becoming so mainstream and such a fundamental part of our lives that they needed to look good and fit in with the decor of our homes and our personalities. In other words, the better a computer (or device) works, the more important and integrated into your life it becomes, and the more value aesthetics have.
Those copycats don't realize this. They throw on color as though it will make up for inadequate functionality. As in "No one is using our digital cameras. Maybe if we had purple and blue ones people would buy them?"
Nowhere is the lack of design more obvious than with cellular phones, the market Apple is in the process of revolutionizing with its iPhone. For a decade the cell phone industry has been throwing in features and creating sleek and colorful shells for their crappy internals and the natural result is that people hate their cell phones. They are overly complicated, don't work half the time, and impossible to use. What good are all those fancy features if it's cumbersome to use them?
Traditional cell phones have Byzantine textual menu systems: everything is several layers deep, buried under similar-sounding menu names. Is it any surprise that people use their phones for calling and nothing else?
The so-called "smart" phones are just as bad or worse: while their interfaces are more elaborate, they add more features, which just compounds the problem. Nowhere is this more obvious than this telling screenshot of the new Blackberry 9000 interface:
Yes folks, this is what the folks at RIM apparently think is a good interface: a giant collection of similar-looking icons from which too choose various options.
Pray tell me: how is this any different from a dozen or two text menu options? Actually, it's worse: though it looks prettier, it's far more open to ambiguity and confusion.
This is what people come up with to compete with Apple: they see Apple's brilliantly designed interfaces and completely ignore actual functionality that make those interfaces so compelling and focus on the pretty pictures and visual aspects instead.
Granted, Apple's not perfect: they make mistakes and miss the mark on occasion, but they generally get the core functionality right. The iPhone hits so many home runs that the occasional foul ball is hardly noticeable. The key is that Apple knows how to focus on the truly important things.
For example, how many other companies on the planet would have shipped the iPhone without support for copy and paste?
The answer is none. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Every other company on the planet would assumed that such functionality was critical. I myself would have thought it was if you'd asked me. I mean, on a computer I use copy and paste constantly. It's vital.
But copy and paste is not an easy problem to solve given a device like the iPhone. Unless you want to involve a stylus or incorporate some really awkward fingering or special text selection "modes," it's a challenging problem to solve. I'm confident Apple will solve it, too. But the problem needs experience and Apple was smart to not include it in iPhone 1.0. And via some clever software that anticipates your needs, you hardly miss copy and paste on the iPhone.
Other companies, however, would have forced the feature. They would have wrangled some sort of kludge into the thing, awkward as all get-out, but they would have had the feature on their checklist. It would have complicated the interface and complicated software development and on one would have actually used the feature anyway!
(Quite possibly the company would have ruined a terrific and obvious gesture like "pinching" for zooming by making touching in two places at once a text selection mechanism, thereby making zooming more complicated by requiring a more difficult gesture for it.)
My point is that Apple knows when to stop. Those other companies keep throwing in features on top of features and then the interface is overwhelmed and you just end up with a million menu items (or pretty icons).
With competition like this, methinks the iPhone's future is extremely bright.
From The Road Warrior Archive - PowerBooks And Subtlety
This article also appeared just about a month before the original clamshell iBook was unveiled at Macworld Expo New York in July, 1999. In re-reading this piece nearly nine years later, I find that I'm mostly still of the same mind. I was mistaken about the iBook's form factor though. When it arrived it was bigger and heavier than the Lombard!
I got a particular kick out of revisiting the second-last paragraph with its list of my list of features for the "ideal PowerBook," and which pretty closely anticipated and described the dual USB iBook which was nearly two years in the future at the time, but which, when it arrived, did have about the footprint of a PowerBook 5300 or 1400, only thinner and with G3 (and eventually G4) processing power, did have a 12.1" TFT screen and a quiet, smooth CD-ROM drive although unfortunately not in a removable-device expansion bay and no iBook ever had CardBus PC Card slots. On the other hand, my calling for a 4 or 6 GB HD and 64MB standard RAM were excessively modest, there was no "advanced RAM Disk" feature, USB was prominently standard, although SCSI was superseded by FireWire. There was a modem but no WallStreet/Lombard keyboard, and all things considered it wasn't a bad call two years in advance.
CM
From The Road Warrior Archive
PowerBooks And Subtlety - First Published June 11, 1999
Last week, my "View From The MacCave" column on the MacTimes Network was entitled "Lombard: Still The Mac To Have If You're Only Having One."
In the article, I re-asserted my theory, familiar to regular readers of "The Road Warrior," that PowerBooks are the logical Mac for most of us, providing that we can live with the higher cost of admission.
One of the points I cited in support of this argument went as follows:
"So, the PowerBook's obvious first advantage is it's small size and portability. Some people need, and others like me simply prefer, the small size of a laptop computer. You aren't rooted in one spot, and can even conveniently use the computer outdoors in nice weather if the mood strikes you. PowerBooks also don't dominate a room the way a desktop machine does. They are more SUBTLE, something that appeals to me greatly."
A Danish reader, who has a Lombard 400 MHz on order, sent me this interesting comment on the subtlety angle:
"Hi Charles,
"More about your article: "Lombard: Still The Mac To Have".
"Firstly, I can't get over that it is *exactly* the article I was looking for, for days. Should I buy a Lombard as my main computer, and why? Excellent work, thanks.
"Secondly, and more importantly, you wonder why more people don't buy PowerBooks as their main computers. I agree.
"Still I think the answer is in a word you use yourself. You say you like the small machines because its SUBTLETY appeals to you. Well there you have it. To the great bulk of homo sapiens, "subtlety" is some place in Russia, to use a Danish expression (I'm Danish).
"Look at some simple examples. People come into a common room where they're gonna work. It is too hot for them. They see the thermostat is set at 3. Now, do they turn it down to 2? No. They turn it down to Zero. And of course next day it is freezing in there.
"You see? For most people, even the difference between a setting of 3 and one of 2 is too subtle! It doesn't click anything in their minds. And forget about some kind of setting of 5.78 versus 5.76. Just is not real at all.
"When people use a zoom lens, they usually only use the extreme settings. They can't perceive the difference between 90mm and 120mm. They just turn it till it goes click against the end setting.
"This is not only the explanation to why there are so few really good artists, or programmers, it is also the explanation to why so few pay good money for Art, or for PowerBooks. You don't wanna pay good money for something you are not sure is real, do you?
"The only things that are real to normal homo sap. is bulk, and real numbers. Bigger is better. Bigger numbers are better. How can something smaller possibly be better? Anything in that direction is too subtle, to unreal.
"Well, sorry, you suddenly woke the philosopher in me. Not that he sleeps very tight ever"
Yours,
Eolake Stobblehouse
I think Eolake has hit several nails squarely on the head here. It is easy to get caught up by the "bigger-is-better" syndrome. PowerBooks - even the hefty 3400s and WallStreets, are relatively pretty small compared with even an iMac, let alone a Yosemite with a 21 inch monitor. The fact that they come at a substantially higher cost than desktop machines feature -for-feature doesn't help the perception unless you value subtlety and understatedness.
However, for me, desktop computers, as wonderful as many of them are, just seem spatially inefficient compared with PowerBooks, and a big contributor to this inefficiency is the CRT monitor. Ergo, flat screen desktop display's go a long way toward mitigating my objections to desktop computers. Unhappily, flat screen desktop monitors are obscenely expensive (and getting more so), which erases much or all of the desktop price advantage.
On the other hand, the ingenious way that engineers are able to pack so much power and performance into the svelte laptop form factor gives me a great sense of satisfaction. Those who disparage the PowerBook's traditionally slightly lower performance compared with contemporary desktop Macs are missing the point. Obviously, if you need lots of slots and expandability, the desktop machine is for you. But how many Mac-users fill those slots and take advantage of internal expansion options?
For me, the PowerBook is the most perfect manifestation of the Macintosh's salutary virtue of transparency - its happy quality of letting you get on with your work without the machine getting in the way.
There is a quiet peacefulness about working with a PowerBook that is just not part of the picture with a 50 or 60 pound behemoth grinding away, fan whirring and CRT glaring in your face. As author and columnist Ron Rosenbaum notes in an article I reviewed in this week's Miscellaneous Ramblings, laptops are much preferable to desktop gargantuans that turn one's study or apartment "into a Dilbert cubicle." "Why switch from my elegant, compact, graceful typewriter," he asks. "which was heavy but still portable, to tie myself to some toxic behemoth monitor."
I remember when I got my first PowerBook -- a 5300. I was simply blown away by how such a tiny thing could pack so much more power than my desktop machine - an '030 LC 520. It spoke to my appreciation of subtle efficiency. Still does.
In that context, I would have to observe that the later, bigger PowerBooks, wonderful as they are, have been something of a regression (the 2400 is an exception to this) in the subtle efficiency department, although Lombard's trip to the fat farm has reversed the trend, and the eagerly awaited "iBook" and "eBook," or whatever they are ultimately called will be a further improvement, form-factor wise. Right now, ultra-thin PCs like the Sony Vaio and Mitsubishi Pedion have the edge subtle efficiency-wise, albeit in form-factor only.
There are other improvements I would like to see. For about a year, back when my 5300 was not connected to the Internet, I ran it mainly off a RAM disk, and often went all day without spinning up the hard drive. (I know, I know -- I was skating on thin ice not regularly saving my work to the HD, but the skeleton system I was running on the RAM Disk was extremely stable, and I can only recall losing a small amount of data once in a crash). The quietness was delightful -- even better than running my old Mac Plus off a floppy with the HD not turned on.
It would be great if Apple could concentrate some engineering effort on making RAM Disk technology really work conveniently and dependably. Having no hard drive whirring away in the background (or constantly cycling up) increases the subtlety quotient tremendously.
And while I'm at it, can't something be done about the raucous PowerBook CD-ROM drives, which are about as subtle as a chainsaw? I LOVE the old Sony 2x CD-ROM unit in my LC 520 - cumbersome CD-caddy and all. It is dead silent and smooth as silk. I appreciate that higher speed comes at a price, but would it not be possible to have a user-selectable multi-speed option so that one could choose silence over speed when appropriate? Just asking.
A PowerBook I would like to own would have about the footprint of a 5300 or 1400, but thinner and with G3 (or G4?) processing power, an 11.3" or 12.1" TFT screen, a quiet, smooth CD-ROM expansion bay drive (speed not the central factor), a small, quick, version of the Mac OS optimized for PowerBook use (but support for the full Mac OS as well if desired), a 4 or 6 GB HD and 64MB standard RAM, incorporating my advanced RAM Disk idea outlined above, USB and SCSI support onboard, two CardBus PC Card slots for adding other features, including a modem, and the WallStreet/Lombard keyboard, selling for about the price of the current iMac. In other words, a machine with ample power to do the stuff I do with computers most of the time -- word processing, email, Web surfing, and a bit of image editing -- but not a lot of frills.
Meanwhile, PowerBooks of all sorts are proof that good things come in small packages.
***
Charles W. Moore
The Road Warrior archives may be accessed from the link at the bottom of this page
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Will Intel’s Atom And Montevina CPUs Usher In A New Era For Apple Notebooks?
The MacBook Air didn't really deliver on this. It has the more modest performance part, but through major compromises in practical usefulness, and it still runs hot anyway. What I want is a standard-sized laptop with the normal compliment of ports and features, a swappable battery a standard-sized and capacity hard drive, but I'm prepared to live with slower processor speed in return for lower heat, peace and quiet, and enhanced battery life.
However, help may be on the way in the form of the new Intel Atom family of low-power processors, announced last month and on display last week at Intel's Developer Forum in Shanghai, at least if Apple chooses to take advantage of this technology.Both MacBook Pro' and MacBooks have been plenty powerful from the get-go, but prone to running substantially hotter than their Power PC G4 predecessors, which were not exactly cool-runners themselves. The heating issue means lots of noisy cooling fan activity on these machines and Apple no longer recommending that they be used as literal laptop computers. The latest revisions of the MacBook and MacBook Pro with their 45 nanometer technology Penryn Core 2 Duo processors are significantly improved in this regard, but still run very hot by historical Apple laptop standards. There's no mystery why. Typically, Intel's Core 2 Duo mobile processors suck about 35-watts of power, compared with some 10 w to 20 w being the norm in toward the end of the Power PC laptop era. By Contrast, the Atom chips, which Intel claims will provide roughly the same level of performance as a mainstream CPU from the early-mid '00s, demand a minuscule three watts or less. This is achieved by virtue of variable voltage and clock speed settings as well as components , for example the memory cache, that can be turned off when not in use, which according to Intel, will keep the average power draw in the neighborhood of 160 to 220 milliwatts, and idle power range of 80-100mW, which as well as reducing heat generated can also enhance battery life dramatically.
Intel says the Intel Atom processor is based on an entirely new micro-architecture designed specifically for small devices and low power, while maintaining the Intel Core 2 Duo instruction set compatibility consumers are accustomed to when using a standard PC and the Internet. The design also includes support for multiple threads for better performance and increased system responsiveness. All of this on a chip that measures less than 25 mm, making it Intel's smallest and lowest power processor yet. Up to 11 Intel Atom processor die - the tiny slivers of silicon packed with 47 million transistors each - would fit in an area the size of an American penny.
These new chips, previously code-named Silverthorne and Diamondville, will be manufactured on Intel's 45 nanometer process and have a thermal design power (TDP) specification in 0.6-2.5 watt range with up to 1.86 GHz clock speeds compared with current mainstream mobile Core 2 Duo processors that have a TDP in the 35-watt range. These remarkable low-power demands are achieved thanks to new processor design power management techniques such as Intel Deep Power Down Technology (C6), CMOS mode, and Split I/O power supply. The Atom technology package also includes integrated graphics called the Intel System Controller Hub.
The earliest we would see Atom-based Apple laptops would probably be early 2009 - that is if Apple decides to take advantage of this technology. In the nearer term, Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group, commented in Shanghai that new notebook products should be coming to market later this year with Intel's next-generation "Montevina" Intel (Centrino 2 in PC universe nomenclature) processor technology for notebooks, projected for release in June, providing faster performance and longer battery life.
Montevina will introduce DDR3 support to notebooks, which in turn contribute to boosting battery life, and presumably run cooler yet due to DDR3’s lower operating voltage (1.5V vs. 1.8V). Montevina will will feature faster new GMA X4500HD integrated graphics support than the current GMA X3100 and a lower power chipset. The GMA X4500HD will add full hardware H.264 decode acceleration, which will enable native hardware support for high-definition entertainment using Blu-ray drives, and better Blu-Ray performance on battery power, although Blu-Ray will probably find its way into the MacBook Pro before the MacBook gets it. Montevina will also be the first CPU platform from Intel to offer an integrated Wi-Fi and WiMAX wireless access option that is expected to be available in certain notebooks, although we can't be certain at this juncture that Apple will choose to go with that.
My guess is that we'll see Montevina MacBooks some time in the fall, but a report on AppleInsider this week suggests they could roll out even sooner than that, and incorporate major design changes such as aluminum cases for the Macbook as well as the new CPUs. We'll see.
Other options for Centrino 2 include the processor and other components that are about 40 percent smaller, making them ideal for the mini- and sub-notebook categories like the MacBook Air. In China, Mr. Perlmutter shared details in graphics quality and native hardware support for high-definition entertainment using Blu Ray, and demonstrated Intel solid state drive technology.
All in all it's shaping up to be an exciting second half of 2008 for Apple notebook aficionados. Makes the decision more complicated for those contemplating a purchase in the near term. The Penryn-based MacBook Pro and MacBook revisions released at the end of February are the best MacIntel notebooks yet, but if AppleInsider is right that they "will be the last of their breed," with major design changes coming with their next refresh, patience for a few more months may be amply rewarded.
For more information, visit:
http://www.intel.com/
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
The Road Warrior Mailbag - April 7, 2008
Adventures in MacBook Land
Pismo G3 900MHz vs. G4 550MHz
An Unusual Question Or Two
Spring Upgrades For old Pismo PowerBooks
Adventures in MacBook Land
From Bruce Williamson
Hi Charles,
After much soul-searching and trepidation, I finally took the plunge and bought a new MacBook a few days ago. I got the stock white model with the now standard SuperDrive, 2 GB RAM & 160 GB hard drive, replacing my 2-1/2 year old 14 inch iBook G4. I did this almost entirely because of wanting to be able to use MacSpeech's new Dictate. A couple of quick reactions.
Dictate. Marc Zeedar's review today is pretty much spot on from my experience so far. I am looking forward to getting Dictate better & better trained but right now I would say out of the box with 4 minutes of training it's 90-95% accurate. Most of the errors I notice are on contractions and "sounds like" words. WIll keep reading the stories to enhance the accuracy. Do you know if Dictate has or will have the same feature as iListen where you could dictate into a digital voice recorder and have the program transcribe it later?
MacBook. I am stunned at how much I like this machine after only a few days of use. It's the absolute perfect next step in my computing career. I admit that I did carry on a very serious flirtation with the MacBook Air (ever since we met at MacWorld) but I am very happy I made the decision to buy this MacBook model and can recommend it without any reservations.
• The screen is gorgeous and MUCH whiter and brighter than the iBook even though it is also using a fluorescent display. The best laptop screens Apple makes are the LED versions on the MacBooks Pro & Air but this one is such an improvement over the iBook and a real pleasure to use. In fact I thought I would have to get an external display for clarity - and I may still do that for the extra real estate - but I am finding the compressed pixels on the MacBook screen extremely easy to read, even for my aging boomer eyeballs. Occasionally I notice the reflection off of the glossy screen but most of the time it is a non-issue.
• The Setup Assistant was astonishingly thorough and migrated everything from my iBook in a few hours with only a very few items such as a password and Adobe authentications needing to be reset. In fact, the whole process went so incredibly smoothly that I now think I am forever cured of any desire to start "fresh" by reinstalling everything from original CDs the next time I buy a new machine. I have checked my apps and they all work great. I had expected to have to have my iBook around for awhile but I simply used SuperDuper and Time Machine to back up everything and then erased and reformatted the iBook in preparation to sell it. I figure the iBook has a lot of useful life left in it.
• Battery life is checking in around 4-5 hours with the screen turned down a few notches.
• The "chiclet" keyboard is an improvement over the iBook's and has the same feel I like in the new aluminum keyboard I hook up to the MacBook when it's at my desk.
• As to the form factor I think Apple has reached some kind of perfection with this design, although of course it will always be fun to see how Apple will continue to reinvent products that we are completely satisfied with.
• The speed increase with the Intel chipset is very noticeable - not essential for most of what I use a computer for - but nice to have.
• The speakers are at least twice as good as the iBook, which you could hardly hear at all.
• I like the shortened height of the wide screen, which makes the carrying size more compact and a little lighter.
• Heat buildup does not seem to be an issue. When the processor is working hard with DVDs, etc. I notice in a quiet room that the fans come on with a little more noise than the iBook but not objectionably so.
That's the report for now. Hope that Spring is arriving in your neck of the Northeastern Woods.
Bruce
Hi Bruce;
Congratulations on your new purchase, and thanks for the detailed report. Interestingly, I also find that support for Dictate is the most compelling reason for me to upgrade my system, likely also to a MacBook.
MacSpeech supported the somewhat expensive Olympus DS-4000 Digital Voice Recorder with their iListen product, and I would guess that they will likely extend support to Dictate eventually. You can find out more about the DS-4000 here.
http://www.macspeech.com/product_info.php?cPath=65&products_id=300
Your report on the Macbook is definitely encouraging, and squares with my expectations and deductions. IMHO, holding out for an LED backlight is probably the most compelling reason *not* to make the jump with these Penryn 'Books, but there is no guarantee that the next revision will have the LED (I'm guessing it's likely, though). However, as you say, the CCFL backlight in these newer machines is a big improvement over what we are used to in the Power PC 'Books.
As for the weather, whoever dubbed April "the cruel month" must have lived in Atlantic Canada. That said, spring is coming a bit early this year. The ice is mostly out of the lake (usual date for that is around the 22nd), the loons have returned (saw and heard them the first time today) and we've had a fair few sunny days, albeit not very warm, and snow is forecast for tonight, turning to rain tomorrow. The Atlantic Ocean, which we can see from our living-room window, acts as a big cold sink. The compensatory payoff is in our long, warm falls, with the ocean acting as a heat sink.
Charles
Pismo G3 900MHz vs. G4 550MHz
From Joe Leo
Dear Charles,
Hey there friend! Thought I'd jump in and give my 10 cents (ha ha) on your reader's question about the PowerLogix upgrade.
I was one of those, way back when, deciding whether it would be better to get the G4 upgrade over the G3 one, but at the time, I really believed the marketing that PowerLogix had in place and it kind of made sense that a 900MHz processor would be faster than a 550MHz one at face value. On the flipside, taking the g-forces for what they're worth, it's logical a G4 outperforms a G3.
I wish I had kept mine. I um, sold it to someone, for $550 because I found I was no longer using it after making the new king of PowerBooks (opinion!), the 12-inch PowerBook G4 my main machine. Figured I'd better get my investment back in some form before it totally is a wash out.
What I'm more concerned is that the 900Mhz upgrade your reader found on eBay was from my machine taken apart and restored to factory condition - with a spare 400Mhz card - and the 900Mhz PowerLogix sold separately. Ouch! I thought of that myself. elling it apart, as well as selling it in my own auction. But at the time, an acquaintance recommended I take what I could and run with it.
Maybe I should have sold it at auction (sold it directly via a private sale) and see what would have transpired. Probably more than the $550, now that I look back at it.
The other reason for the sale was that I bought a "new' 1.5GHz 15-inch PowerBook in November, so something had to go!
Back to the topic at hand, I never experienced overheating issues. Though, maybe that's why the fan always ran. But that was during the summer time, and my office at work gets hot. (Second level, sun hits the room all day since the windows face North). It was a speed demon compared to what it was before. I noticed the battery ran down very quickly when I eventually made the move to OS X. Under OS 9, it was fine.
I think the fact that it had a 900MHz G3 processor made OS X perky more than pokey. Running OS X on my iMac G3 400Mhz model was pokey. Plus I had the full 1GB of RAM in my Pismo.
The reason why I wish I'd kept it was so that I could compare the two side-by-side. I had a spare Pismo donated to me, and wanted to plug in a 550MHz G4 processor in there and run them for tests. That will never happen now.
But I agree with you on one point. At this point in time, to upgrade a Pismo with a 900MHz for $400 seems a waste of money. I paid $349 for the upgrade when it came out. I think it runs for $400 or more because of scarcity more than sheer processing power. For $400, you can get a used iBook G3 with a 900MHz processor and more advanced (again, opinion) features than the Pismo.
What IS RARE is the 1.0GHz G3 upgrade, as PowerLogix had it very briefly but found it more trouble than it was worth. More rare than that is the unofficial 900MHz G4, yes GEE FOUR!, upgrade that was also in the works, and many people swear by it.
You knowing me being a Pismo aficionado, my heart will always be with the best of the PowerBooks. But in this day in age, that $400 is better spent adding $200 more to get a low-end 867MHz 12-inch PowerBook G4, or even a higher spec 15-inch PowerBook G4.
Long live the Pismo PowerBook. If I get a chance, one of these days, I will buy one again on eBay. (And then I'll be one of those searching for the 900MHz chip upgrade that I lost when I sold mine. Be funny if I ended up buying back my own! And sad thing is, I'd recognize it too!).
Joe Leo, Columnist
Power | 'Book Central
http://www.pbcentral.com
For The Latest News, Features, Commentary/Opinion (& Other Stories) From 'The Press Box':
http://www.pbcentral.com/columns/hildreth_leo/
Hi Joe;
Thanks for the report and commentary.
I guess the issue of which was fastest - the 900 MHz G3 or the 550 MHz G4 - will remain undetermined until someone does get the two side by side. I expect it;s safe to say, though that for running Altivec optimized software (eg: the Photoshop family) the G4 will come out on top.
Also, you say your 900 MHz G3 never overheated, but the fan ran all the time.
The fan running all the time (or more often than rare episodes under exceptionally heavy processor load) is my definition of overheating! I have two Pismos in service with 550 MHz G4 processor upgrades. The fan did cut in on one of them last week during an online session during which Navigator 9 was having some memory corruption issues, and it spooled down almost immediately after I quit the program. The Pismo hadn't been restarted since early January (and has been in daily use) and still hasn't I just switched to Camino for browsing. At first it was just laziness and procrastination; now I'm interested to see how long I can go without a reboot. That machine has only 576 MB of RAM too! The last time the fan had come on was a hot day back in the spring of 2005. I'm running OS 10.4.11 and get 4-5 hours of battery life with a FastMac extended life battery. It only gets mildly warm to touch even in long sessions.
Not bad. The old Pismo is fabulously stable and I can't discern any downside at all to the 550 MHz G4 upgrade.
I do agree that iBooks and 12" PowerBooks offer an awful lot of value for the money these days, but I would still rather be running a Pismo, and Wegener Media will sell you a 550 MHz processor ugrade for 200 bucks, which begins to make rational sense for folks who admilre the Pismo's many virtues and superiorities and are on a tight budget.
Charles
Re: G3 900MHz vs. G4 550MHz
From Joe Leo
Hey Charles,
You know, now that you mention it, I left mine on too "forever." I rarely ever shut it down. Sometimes I'd have to restart it if something was hogging the RAM or a process in the background.
I ran mine in Mac OS 9 with the PowerLogix upgrade long before I tried out Mac OS X and then liked it. It was only in Mac OS X where the fans would start running regularly. In OS 9, it rarely turned on. I found in OS X (can't remember which iteration I started out with, but I know that last I used before I--egad!--sold it was Tiger.
At least, I used Tiger before I put it in storage after getting my 12- inch PowerBook. When I sold it, I restored it to Mac OS 9.
The one advantage the 900MHz G3 had over its "competition" which I also failed to mention, was PowerLogix's software that allowed you to change the speed of the processor on the fly. I was able to get longer battery runtimes in OS 9 by putting it down to 200MHz, or back to its stock setting of 400MHz.
I don't recall if this feature was available for OS X.
Boy do I miss that machine. My first-ever laptop. But unfortunately, compared to my newest 15-inch 1.67GHz Double-Layer SD model that I just got last week, I hate to say it, but this one blows the Pismo away. In SOME areas.
Long live the Pismo! (In fact, I may have an upcoming story on the site about another kind of 900MHz upgrade...).
Sincerely,
Joe Leo
Hi Joe;
The Pismo is a rocket sled in OS 9 with the 550 MHz G4.
I run my 1.33 Ghz G4 PowerBook a lot at reduced processor speed (presuambly 667 MHz) to help keep the fans spooled down, although for some reason after a day or two of uptime I can switch the setting (in the Leopard or Tiger Energy Saver Preferences under the Options tab) to "Automatic" and the fans mostly stay quiet. On the other hand, after a restart for the first while the fans come on with little provocation even at the Reduced setting. Weird.
Charles
An Unusual Question Or Two
From Anthony
As I have SO often in the past,I am relying on your Mac knowledge and experience.
As I think you'll agree, the Mac is a superior machine. I wanted to get your opinion on artistic programs and peripherals. If I'm emailing the incorrect 'Mac-Wizard' or ''Mac-Czar', please let me know. What I would like to know specifically, is what hardware/software configuration do you recommend for Macs?
It would probably cut down on the Manual scanning into a digital form!
While I'm on the subject, I'll share that until I realized where the source of my artistic doodling came from, my drawings were monotone! Now, color is possible! Until I accepted Christ, color was always impossible for me! I attached the b&w 'melting' drawing during drawing that piece, my heart came around to accept Christ.
Anyway, I figured I go to the Mac-Source!
Blessings and He is Risen,
Anthony
P.S. BTW, can you point out a good Bible program for Macs?
Hi Anthony;
I'm humbled.
Your artitistic talent vastly exceeds mine, so my frame of reference in evaluating Mac art-oriented applications is limited. Painter (now owned and developed by Corel), has lang had excellent reviews from artists.
As for your question: "what hardware/software configuration do you recommend for Macs?" that of course depends on what you intend to do with the rig, the flushness of your budget, whether you're desktop or laptop partial, and so forth.
It's awfully tough to beat the value for the money of an iMac, and the 24" model is probably especially attractive to artists. You would no doubt want a good scanner (I like my Epson Perfection 4870, but it's been several-generations superceded by newer models), and a decent-quality printer, of which there are many. A graphics tablet would likely be useful. I have a somewhat ancient Wacom unit, and they are the reference brand in tablets.
As for Bible software, there are several excellent Bible applications for the Mac. Mac OS X Bible software apps. include Accordance, Online Bible, iBible, Bible Reader Free, MacSword, and Java- based Bible Discovery. A new (to the Mac) Bible study app. to be released soon is Logos Libronix, about which you can find out more here:
http://www.logos.com/mac
Incidentally for quick online lookups in a mind-boggling selection of translations in many langauges, BibleGateway.com, is a great place to spend some time You can check it out here: http://www.biblegateway.com/
Online Parallel Bible is a similar site, and also includes parallel Bible commentaries along with a wide variety of translations.
http://bible.cc/
Another dimension in electronic Bible study tools is computerization and cross-referencing of the Strong's Number system. Strong's Numbers were assigned to individual words in the Bible by Dr. James Strong for his Exhaustive Concordance, first published in 1890, but have become vastly more convenient to use with computers Bible-Discovery Complex Bible Studying Software has this feature:
http://www.bible-discovery.com/
The program is free.
If you like the Dashboard, check out Logos Bible Widget:
http://www.logosbiblewidget.com/
Personally, I mostly use the two parallel Bible Websites mentioned above as well as MacSword and Bible Reader Free, which are both freeware.
http://www.macsword.com/
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/ Educational/Bible-Reader-Free.shtml
Charles
Spring Upgrades For old Pismo PowerBooks
Wegener Media announces:
Greetings from South Carolina, where spring is in the air - and the weather is already warming! We've had a few days of near 70 F here-a bit early for us, but hey, we'll take it!!!
We want to let you know of some fabulous savings options we've been able to compile for a handful of Powerbook upgrades. These are all for the Pismo Powerbook, and we're offering up to $90 in savings on items like our G4 upgrade card, 1GB RAM upgrade kits for $99, and our famous slot-load optical kits which allow burning CD's or DVD's on your Pismo.
This offer will run for only a limited time, so don't delay. Now is the perfect time to get the most power out of your old but useful Powerbook.
G4 Pismo 550mhz upgrade card - as low as $169
Slot-load combo drives & Superdrives for your Pismo starting at $59.99 when purchased with other items!
In addition to these upgrades, we've got some great deals on HDD's for the Pismo..
160gb HDD (2.5" IDE, either a Western Digital Scorpio 5400rpm or a Samsung 5400rpm Momentus) for $89.99 if ordered with another upgrade.
If you're looking for a high-speed WIFI card - we've got 'em. PCMCIA 802.11g Belkin card for your Powerbook.. Just slide in and run - no software needed for OSX use.
If you're considering upgrading to a MacBook or MacBook Pro, check our site - - we just received HUNDREDS of MacBooks and MacBook Pros!!
Have a great spring!!
Processor & RAM
G4 Processor upgrade kit and 1gb RAM.
$275 after rebate ($30 discount).
$60 core charge added - will be rebated after you send the good core back to us. $ 274.99
Processor & Combo
G4 Processor upgrade kit and 24x Combo Slot Kit $265 after rebate ($40 discount).
$60 core charge added - will be rebated after you send the good core back to us. O$ 264.99
Processor & Battery
G4 Processor upgrade kit and 6000mah Battery $260 after rebate ($50 discount).
$60 core charge added - will be rebated after you send the good core back to us. $ 269.99
For more information, visit:
http://www.wegenermedia.com/pismooffercombos.htm
http://www.ibookparts.com
http://www.wegenermedia.com
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Dictate, Round Two
In my last column I wrote about MacSpeech is Dictate software. I had not intended that to be a review, per se - it was really my first impressions of the software. While I think those first impressions were accurate, they don't really reflect the actual usefulness of the software as it might be after you've trained it and are more familiar with how it works. So I decided to take another look and write a little bit more about the software. I think that is only fair.
I am writing this column with my voice and I'm using a headset microphone instead of my laptops built in microphone. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to edit this text after I write it. I may just leave it as it is, verbatim. The software actually works well enough now that other than a few specialized words and phrases it doesn't need much editing. I'm actually surprised at how much better it works with the headset microphone: it really does make a significant difference.
I'm in a very quiet place and I thought the built-in microphone would be okay. But the headset definitely improves recognition. When I use the old software, I listen, it did not make much difference whether I used a headset or not: either way there were so many errors it was useless. With Dictate, the recognition is almost flawless with a headset.
As you can already tell there are very few errors in this text. However, it is not perfect. It made a mistake in the first line where did not make the word "MacSpeech" possessive (possessives seem to be a consistent problem). In the last paragraph, it did not know the product name "iListen." (Wow! It worked that time. Weird.)
When I used Dictate the first time I often found myself frustrated because it had trouble recognizing ordinary words. For instance, it could not tell the difference between bat and cat and fat. I had thought that was a problem with the speech recognition, but it now seems it was just a microphone issue. When ordinary words give you such trouble it really slows down the usage of speech recognition and I found the product frustrating to use and slower than typing. But now that I'm using it with a headset I find I can talk at almost normal speeds and it will keep up with me, and the accuracy is excellent.
Another significant issue with speech recognition is that for it to work the best it needs in the context of the surrounding words. This is how it is able to understand the difference between two words that sound alike and pick the right one. Unfortunately, when the software isn't recognizing your words, you tend to slow your speech down and speak one word at a time and that as a side effect of making overall speech-recognition worse because there's less context for it to interpret. Now that I'm using the headset and it's recognizing simpler words easier and I can speak at a normal rate I find that I'm able to feed it longer sentences and the accuracy of ambiguous words is significantly better.
Some of the points I made in my first impressions review are still valid, however. I'm still not convinced at dictates usefulness for fiction. Fiction is too broad and complex -- character names, unusual punctuation, jargon, slang, foreign expressions, even made up words, are all common in fiction writing. Dictate does have a mode where it can import samples of your writing and analyze them to help it recognize your particular style of writing. That's a good idea and I think it can help in some ways, but it only works if you already have writing for it to import. If you're starting a new novel with brand-new characters, for example, there's nothing for it to read.
When Dictate does make mistakes they are often subtle. In some ways the increased accuracy and getting with the headset is worse simply because it works so well much of the time that I miss errors as I assume it's correct. This has happened to me several times in my experimentations where it inserted a "the" instead of an "and" or something similar. If I'm not watching carefully or proofreading I might miss such an error. Because the words are spelled correctly they are unlikely to be caught with a spelling checker and because the errors are so minor they are easy to overlook and could be published.
Another issue is that I don't see a way to correct the program when it makes a mistake, to teach it the right way. It's frustrating when it keeps suggesting the same wrong word over and over each time when you say a word. I don't know if the program learns from what you're saying. For instance, if it makes a suggestion and I tell it to forget it, is it learning from that correction? If so, what happens when I edit myself and simply change my mind about what I wanted to write? Does it think it made a mistake in recognition? I don't want to get in the habit of teaching it incorrectly. Perhaps it does learn from my corrections, but it isn't very obvious -- I would prefer a more manual method of correcting it, such as a menu command that tells it the last recognized word was incorrect.
Overall, however, I am pleased with the software. I don't know that I would bother with it without the headset -- there were just too many errors and it was too frustrating to use to make it worth the trouble. With the headset, however, it's surprisingly useful. I could definitely see myself using it for certain types of work or if my fingers or wrists were bothering me from too much typing. I have had minor bouts of repetitive stress injury in the past and it's always been a concern of mine that such a thing could disable me. With Dictate, I can write with my voice and rest my hands. That's pretty impressive. (Though I still find having to use a headset a bother.)
I'm also curious about the amount of time it takes to actually write something using voice. When I tested this before it felt much slower than typing it manually. I was having to speak slowly and enunciate and repeat phrases and words so often and fight with the dictation software that even if it didn't take longer it felt like it. So with this article I am keeping track of my time: I started writing this at 6:43 PM and it is now 7:18 PM. So about 30 minutes, which is not bad. I doubt I could have typed this much faster (keeping in mind I'm composing thoughts as I type or speak, not just typing text that's already written). With that kind of speed, if the errors are minimal or acceptable, I could see myself using this for e-mails or other kinds of routine correspondence. That's pretty cool.
As promised, I have not made any manual corrections to this text. I did make corrections with voice if I saw that it misunderstood something I said. But generally speaking, simply repeating the phrase and enunciating made it recognize what I said. That's much different than before when I would say the phrase 10 times and it would give me 10 different responses (all of them wrong).
I do think there are some improvements to the software that can be made, but overall I am much more impressed by it now than I was before. Before it was like hearing a dog talk: it was just impressive that he could do it at all but it wasn't practical or useful. Now the recognition is accurate enough I think I could actually use this in day-to-day work. If you look through this column you will notice that it is recognizing things like dates and times, trademarks and product names, and some interesting and unusual turns of phrase. That's amazing.
I will continue to play with the software and experiment with it on various projects and perhaps I will dictate more on the subject in the future.
Writing With Speech
| Edited | Unedited | |
As a writer, speech recognition software has always fascinated me. It sounds like the Holy Grail of computing: you speak and it types. Unfortunately, the reality has always fallen far short of expectations. A few years ago I tried MacSpeech's iListen software, but was left extremely unimpressed. I felt a bit deceived -- it was promoted as not needing much training, but even after hours of training it still made far too many errors to be useful. Worse, it required a special microphone which was a hassle to connect and use. At MacWorld this year MacSpeech announced a new product called Dictate which promises to bring Dragon's Naturally Speaking from the PC to the Macintosh. Supposedly this is a much better speech recognition engine and I would have better results. I was eager to try it so I purchase the upgrade. The results are impressive. Dictate is definitely much better than iListen. With very little training -- less than five minutes -- and using the built-in microphone of my MacBook laptop, I am able to achieve decent results. However, decent is not perfect. Not perfect means you have to edit the resulting text by hand. That's not the end of the world, but it seems to me it spoils the point of using dictation software in the first place. The main problem is that the errors Dictate inserts are subtle. For instance you don't have spelling errors, but you might have a missing word, an extra word, an incorrect word, or missing letters such as plurals or ED at the end of a word. Those kinds of errors can be difficult to spot and will probably slip through an editing process more easily than your own typos. Another problem is that dictation is not speech. There are parts of dictation that are learnable -- such as speaking clearly, speaking at a consistent pace, and speaking punctuation that normally would be implied -- but much more difficult is actually having your thoughts organized in your head enough to be able to speak them. I've been writing for over 25 years and I don't need to think about it much -- I just write and the words just flow. I also tend to do a lot of rewriting even as I'm writing. I'll write part of the sentence and then correct the sentence while I'm typing it. The slowness of typing actually acts as an editing process. With dictation, I have to think clearly about what I'm trying to say because rewriting is difficult with dictation. It actually feels slower and less natural for me. However, that could just be a learning issue. I'm sure with time I'd get used to dictation and it would be more comfortable. When it works, Dictate works really well. It's very fast on my MacBook and can keep up with me even when I talk rapidly. It's great to not have to worry about how to spell complicated words. For certain applications and situations I can see Dictate being not only useful and practical but extremely valuable and perhaps better than typing. Unfortunately, Dictate works best with certain kinds of writing. Perhaps this is just a training issue, but when I attempted to use Dictate to write a short story, it struggled. Names of characters, for example, were not always interpreted correctly. At this early stage of testing, I'm not sure how to add things to Dictate's dictionary. Certain aspects of fiction seem to me less appropriate for dictation software. I also find it difficult to think fiction out in my head before I write it, whereas for an article or e-mail, I do tend to think out my response before I write it. Things like business correspondence strike me as much more practical for dictation. Perhaps this is because Dictate is tuned this way, but I think it's also because more formal communications are simpler and less ambiguous. For example, in my fiction I was using words like "whirled" -- which Dictate insisted on interpreting as the planet, not the motion. This software is supposed to be sophisticated enough to distinguish ambiguities like homonyms via context, but fiction has a much broader context than something like business correspondence. Another interesting aspect of dictation is correcting via speech. To me this seems awkward and I had not thought it very important. The current version of Dictate is limited in what you can correct via speech (more so than the PC version). However, as I used Dictate, I realized that being able to correct via speech is very important. It requires a context switch to correct stuff by hand and it's much easier to concentrate on speaking alone. It's similar to switching between the keyboard and the mouse -- it's annoying to have to take your hands off the keyboard and use the mouse for certain functions. Similarly, it's annoying to have to stop speaking and use the keyboard to make corrections that Dictate won't let you do via voice. Dictate has certain commands like "forget that" that will delete the last phrase interpreted. Unfortunately, sometimes it writes out the words and other times it misinterprets the command. A bigger problem, however, is that because it deletes the entire phrase it makes it hard to correct a single incorrect word at the beginning of the phrase. Sometimes I've tried to correct a single word and then it misinterprets other parts of the phrase when I repeat it. So it's like it fixes one problem only to insert other problems. One solution is to speak in shorter chunks of text, but that in itself causes other problems, because Dictate works much better if you speak in full sentences -- that's because it has more context to work with. Some of these issues I'm sure are just due to my inexperience. Perhaps I'll have less trouble as I get used to the software. For people who have difficulty typing, either through inability or injury, Dictate is definitely terrific software. It might have flaws, but it's better than not communicating at all. Someone who really needs the software would also be more likely to tweak it to its maximum potential. For myself, I'm not sure exactly how I'll use it. I'd love it if I could use it to dictate items on my portable digital recorder and have the software type them in for me later, but I'm not sure if that would work. The digital recorder itself adds noise, and if I'm recording something in my car I'd have engine noise and other distractions that would confuse the speech recognition. I'm also not sure how to train Dictate to work with the portable digital recorder. Since the training process is interactive, how can I pre-record a training session? All that said, I am impressed enough with Dictate that I think I will continue to play with it and see if I can't find a place for it in my workflow. For certain kinds of writing I think it could be really valuable. For instance, how about a daily thought journal? It might be too much work to write it out, but I could speak it. I dictated this entire article and I'm including both versions -- edited and unedited -- so you can compare them and see what kinds of errors Dictate makes. As you will see, most of the errors are minor, but they still require a fine tooth comb to catch them all. Whether or not using dictation software is worth the trouble is up to you. But keep in mind I am not using this under ideal conditions: I only trained Dictate for a few minutes, I am an amateur dictator, and I am not using a headset microphone. In that regard, the accuracy is amazing. I'd bet with practice and a better microphone I could get near a hundred percent accuracy. However, I think I would prefer to not fuss with a microphone and put up with less accuracy -- but your preference may be different. If you're interested in speech recognition software, I would encourage you to check out MacSpeech's Dictate. If you test drove earlier speech recognition software and were frustrated like I was, you should definitely check out Dictate as it is noticeably better. |
As a writer, speech recognition software has always fascinated me. It sounds like the holy Grail of computing: you speak and it types. Unfortunately, the reality is always fallen far short of expectations. After years ago I tried MacSpeech is I listen software, but was left extremely unimpressed. I felt a bit deceived -- it was promoted as not meeting much training, but even after hours of training it still made far too many errors to be useful. Worse, it required a special microphone which was a hassle to connect and use. At MacWorld this year MacSpeech announced a new product called Dictate which promises to bring dragons naturally speaking from the PC to the Macintosh. Supposedly this is a much better speech recognition engine and I would have better results. I was eager to try it so I purchase the upgrade. The results are impressive. Dictate is definitely much better than I listen. With very little training -- less than five minutes -- and using the built-in microphone of my Mac book laptop, I am able to achieve decent results. However, decent is not perfect. Not perfect means you have to edit the resulting text by hand. That's not the end of the world, but it seems to me it spoils the point of using dictation software in the first place. The main problem is that the errors dictate inserts are subtle. For instance you don't have spelling errors, but you might have a missing word, an extra word, An incorrect word, or missing letters such as plurals or ED at the end of a word. Those kinds of errors can be difficult to spot and will probably slept through an editing process more easily than your own typos. Another problem is that dictation is not speech. There are parts of dictation that are learnable -- such as speaking clearly, speaking at a consistent pace, and speaking punctuation that normally would be implied -- but much more difficult is actually having your thoughts organized in your head enough to be able to speak them. I've been writing for over 25 years and I don't need to think about it much -- I just write and the words just slow. I also tend to do a lot of rewriting even as I'm writing. I'll write part of the sentence and then correct the sentence while I'm typing it. The slowness of typing actually acts as an editing process. With dictation, I have to think clearly about what I'm trying to say because rewriting is difficult with dictation. It actually feels slower and less natural for me. However, that could just be a learning issue. I'm sure with time I get used to dictation and it would be more comfortable. When it works, Dictate works really well. It's very fast on my Mac book and can keep up with me even when I talk rapidly. It's great to not have to worry about how to spell complicated words. For certain applications and situations I can see Dictate being not only useful and practical but extremely valuable and perhaps better than typing. Unfortunately, Dictate works best with certain kinds of writing. Perhaps this is just a training issue, but when I attempted to use dictate to write a short story, it struggled. Names of characters, for example, were not always interpreted correctly. At this early stage of testing, I'm not sure how to add things to dictates dictionary. Certain aspects of fiction seemed to me less appropriate for dictation software. I also find it difficult to think fiction out in my head before I write it, whereas for an article or e-mail, they do tend to think out my response before I write it. Things like business correspondence strike me as much more practical for dictation. Perhaps this is because Dictate is tuned this way, but I think it's also because more formal communications are simpler and less ambiguous. For example, in my fiction I was using words like "world" -- which dictate insisted on interpreting as the planet not the motion. This software is supposed to be sophisticated enough to distinguish ambiguities like homonyms via context, but fiction has a much broader context than something like business correspondence. Another interesting aspect of dictation is correcting via speech. To me this seems awkward and I had not thought it very important. The current version of Dictate is limited in what you can correct via speech (more so than the PC version). However, as I use dictate, I realized that being able to correct via speech is very important. It requires a context switch to correct stuff by hand and it's much easier to concentrate on speaking alone. It's similar to switching between the keyboard and the mouse -- it's annoying to have to take your hands off the keyboard and use the mouse for certain functions. Similarly, it's annoying to have to stop speaking and use the keyboard to make corrections that dictate won't let you do ViaVoice. Dictate has certain commands like "forget that" that will delete the last phrase interpreted. Unfortunately, sometimes it writes out the words and other times it misinterprets the command. A bigger problem, however, is that because it deletes the entire phrase it makes it hard to correct a single incorrect word at the beginning of the phrase. Sometimes I've tried to correct a single word and then it misinterprets other parts of the phrase when I repeat it. So it's like it fixes one problem only to insert other problems. One solution is to speak in shorter chunks of text, but that in itself causes other problems, because Dictate works much better if you speak in full sentences -- that's because it has more context to work with. Some of these issues I'm sure are just due to my inexperience. Perhaps I'll have less trouble as I get used to the software. For people who have difficulty typing, either through inability or injury, Dictate is definitely terrific software. It might have flaws, but it's better than not communicating at all. Someone who really needs the software would also be more likely to tweak it to its maximum potential. For myself, I'm not sure exactly how I'll use it. I do love it if I could use it to dictate items on my portable digital recorder and half the software type them in for me later, but I'm not sure if that would work. The digital recorder itself adds noise, and if I'm recording something in my car I'd have engine noise and other distractions that would confuse the speech recognition. I'm also not sure how to train dictate to work with the portable digital recorder. Since the training process is interactive, how can I pre record a training session? All that said, I am impressed enough with Dictate that I think I will continue to play with it and see if I can't find a place for it in my workflow. For certain kinds of writing I think it could be really valuable. For instance, how about a daily thought Journal? It might be too much work to ride it out, but I could speak it. I dictated this entire article and I'm including both versions -- edited and unedited -- so you can compare them and see what kinds of errors dictate makes. As you will see, most of the errors are minor, but they still require a fine tooth comb to catch the mall. Whether or not using dictation software is worth the trouble is up to you. But keep in mind I am not using this under ideal conditions: I only trained dictate or a few minutes, I am an amateur dictator, and I am not using a headset microphone. In that regard, the accuracy is amazing. I'd bet with practice and a better microphone I could get near hundred percent accuracy. However, I think I would prefer to not fussed with a microphone and put up with less accuracy -- but your preference may be different. If you're interested in speech recognition software, I would encourage you to check out MacSpeech is Dictate. If you test drove earlier speech recognition software and were frustrated like I was, you should definitely check out Dictate as it is noticeably better. |
When I accidentally left Dictate running while watching TV, the microphone picked up random sounds and tried to interpret them. When I returned to my laptop, I was greeted with a page of gibberish! It's rather amusing:
Her and her son is a very on their a the ready to upload a new old moon is equipment and you as a bit of a time and a of of a new on a new and a new is is a little new to the the is a war when in a well known bit and make the bee a to a news is wanted is big name in a fit of a with the and
A new and and and and and burden of an and is in or with Clinton in a phone and phone a guy in a said he and his win and a news for you at a now that you've got a sustained, and longing of and all in a new angle acid when they will and I know my-we know that everything and that he's worried that it isn't then I'd say in her name down within the defense to a movement that will and a new and curtains and Clinton in a in SF for a news and bolts up in a new and I'll bet you a bundle that a new page in a new kind of figured you and only you and you alone. There is no return a phone news and the rights and and on him and puts them in a single and on a new is awesome and and only the in a now I had it a good thing to a certain goods as it has been a good phone and see him in a new meaning with him new meaning when one evening when you cease this is not a school all and this is a ruse that in a room room room I needn't worry update their long will the new and then and in him is in a ruling is a there was quote we know I'm all this in his personal in their senior and nice as you seem is stricken in rare in well come listing no subject sooner asked to come" yeah yeah yeah yeah see it that's what I think to I think it's very on a song is certainly yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you are in a scenery are being sent on a is group as it is in your you you you didn't mean to say that he knew who could know who didn't see it when not let alone this year I I'm useless at your cause is the author of was a great picture with him on a. And you new to you if you often he is
Is Dell kicking Apple’s Butt In The Notebook Value Equation?
Now, that $599.00 machine has only a poky Intel Celeron processor, as opposed to the MacBook's Penryn Core 2 Duo chip, but the Inspiron does come with two gigabytes of RAM - twice the standard allotment for the base MacBook; a 250 gigabyte hard drive, which is more than twice the capacity of the MacBook's standard drive, and an 8x DVD-burning optical drive as opposed to the MacBook's combo drive, a more than two inches larger (15.4" vs. 13.3" - both 1280x800) display, and your choice of eight colors: Jet Black with Matte Finish, Alpine White with Gloss Finish, Expresso Brown with Microsatin Finish, Ruby Red with Microsatin Finish, Midnight Blue with Microsatin Finish , Spring Green with Microsatin Finish, Flamingo Pink with Microsatin Finish, and Sunshine Yellow with Microsatin Finish.
And you can upgrade to Core 2 Duo power for another hundred bucks, for a total still $450.00 less than the MacBook's price. True, it's just a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo, but keeping it real, that's plenty enough power for most of us. Both machines use intel's GMA X3100 integrated graphics support, so that's a wash, except that you can upgrade the Inspiron to a 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400 M GS graphics processor unit for $100 extra, an option not available on the MacBook.
Sometimes I wonder about Apple continuing to gain market share. I mean, I'm a consummate, dyed in the wool, Mac fanboy, and even I, if a friend came to me and asked which was a better value - a $600-$700 Dell or the $1,149 MacBook (these are Canadian prices), I would have trouble looking them in the eye and declaring that it is the Mac.
Of course, the big distinction between the Dell and the Apple is the operating system. Both machines will run Windows, the Inspiron ships with "Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium," a dubious boast, but only the Mac will (legally) run the Mac OS, although I have a friend who has made a modest college business of hacking OS X installs onto PC boxes (which is in flagrant violation of Apple's OS X EULA, even if the hacked installs are of bought and paid for copies of Leopard).
Nevertheless,being in the market for a new laptop, I have to wonder if it weren't for the fact I need a Mac for professional reasons as a Mac journalist, I might not be irresistibly tempted by those Dell prices, if not to contend with the frustration and heartbreak of Windows, but perhaps to take a fling at desktop Linux with.
Besides that low-ball $599-priced Inspiron 1525, Dell also offers the Inspiron 1720 with a 17-inch HD widescreen display, a Core 2 Duo processor, two gigs of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, and an 8x DVD burner for $799. The cheapest Apple Canada will sell me a 17-inch MacBook Pro replacement for my current 17-inch PowerBook is a whopping $2,899.00. It's pretty lopsided, and more than a little distressing for a prospective MacBook Pro buyer.
And it's not just Dell. On Monday, Toshiba announced that its updated its Satellite A200 series laptops now have a starting price of less than $600.00, for which you get a machine with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core processor clocked at 1.9 GHz, with 512KB L2 Cache and HyperTranspor Technology up to 800MHz. a gig. of PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM (supports upgrading to 4 gigs.), a160GB - 5400 RPM SATA hard drive, A DVD burner, a 15.4" 1280x800 display, WiFi, and stereo speakers, but just ATI Radeon X1200 integrated graphics support. For 50 bucks more you can move up to a 1.73GHz Pentium Dual-Core processor, two gigs. of RAM, and Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator (GMX) X3100 integrated graphics. Add yet another $100, and you get a 2.0 GHz,AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core processor with 1MB L2 Cache, a 200 GB HD.
If you want a 17" machine, Toshiba also announced a new addition to its 17.1-inch, 1440x900 (same resolution as my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4 desktop replacement laptop Satellite® L350 series with a starting price of $749.99, which gets you the 2 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core processor, two gigs. of RAM, a 200 GB - 4200 RPM HD, a built-in Webcam and microphine, ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics, a DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash support, three of Toshiba's USB Sleep-and-Charge ports which make it possible to charge and power electronic devices regardless of whether the laptop is powered-on, off or in sleep mode. These machines can be purchased directly from Toshiba at:
http://www.toshibadirect.com
I know, I know. Only an Apple 'Book is a Mac, for all the reasons we Mac-heads are aware of and appreciate. However, it all does beg the question of how Dell can sell laptops that much more affordably than Apple does. Are we being ripped off? How much better can the Mac OS be?
Well, enough better, in my estimation, to keep me in a Mac, but, if there were a legal way to run OS X on the Dell, I have to concede and that I would more likely than not choose the Inspiron over the MacBook, and ironically, even with the choice of the colors, I would probably opt for white. I just like white computers, although the Espresso Brown is tasteful and interestingly different. This is absolutely why Apple resolutely refuses to commercially port OS X to the PC platform.
Another specification in which Dell trumped Apple just this past week is in shipping not only Blu-ray laptops, but a Blu-Ray equipped consumer machine for under $1,000. You can now pick up the Inspiron 1525 with the optional Blu-ray disk drive starting at U.S.$879.00. The Inspiron's The Blu-ray playback drive is fully backwards compatible, able to both play and burn regular DVDs and CDs. Also available is a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing, well, probably all your digital data, since a single Blu-ray disk can hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB for a typical DVD disc.
Apple is still selling a ton of computers and gaining market share hand over fist, but if Dell can sell decent-quality laptops for 30-50 percent less with more or higher-spec. standard equipment and features, then there seems no logical reason why Apple can't sharpen its pencils a bit as well, or at least just have a spring sale.
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
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