uninteresting :: nerd

It wasn’t that long ago when it was hard just to get 2 pc’s to communicate on a local network. Tonight I’m sitting in bed watching a movie on my iPad, and thinking how well things work together these days. Because the video file I’m watching is stored on a drive on my Drobo that’s connected via FireWire to my Mac Mini, which is connected via cat5 to my iMac, which is running AIr Video software that live converts the .avi file into an h.264 stream and wirelessly streams it to the iPad, which displays it live without requiring any local storage. And it all works really well.

Today I pulled out the stock 320gb hard drive in the mini and swapped it for a 30gb OCZ Vertex SSD. Why give up all that extra space? For the extra speed. Opening apps is almost instantaneous. And since it’s used as an HTPC, most of the media is access of the Drobo so all I need room for the is OS and apps.

This video was a huge help: Mac mini (Early 2009) Hard Drive Upgrade

If all goes according to my master nerd plan, within the next month or so my computing setup at home is going to speed up immensely on all fronts. Check it out:

1. iMac: Currently I’m on the 24″ 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo, but I plan to buy the 27″ iMac i7 Quad Core (as soon as it’s available to Apple Employees). The i7 has hyperthreading, so it can be up to 8 virtual cores for parallel tasks. Alternatively, if you’re using only 1 core it can overclock itself to 3.4Ghz. The geekbench score of the i7 shows it to be over 100% faster than 3.06Ghz C2D. It’s pretty rare that you see a system jump this much in performance within 1 product generation.
2. SSD: SSD benchmarks put hard drives to shame, and the Intels are the best out there. I put an Intel X25-E in my Macbook Pro, and it’s pretty ridiculous. Things open up immediately, and I never see the spinning beachball of death unless an app truly crashes. I’ve have an 80GB Intel X25-M gen 2 SSD waiting for the iMac. It’s going to be a bitch to install it internally (hopefully I’ll be able to pay someone to do that), but once it’s in it’s gonna be sweeeet.
3. DOCSIS 3.0: I just discovered that Comcast has rolled this out in my area, and promptly ordered the Extreme service – 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up! It’s $80/mo for 6 months, then $100/mo. But if I don’t think it’s worth keeping, I’ll downgrade to the Ultra plan which is 22/5 for $63/mo. Either way, it’s going to be way faster than my existing AT&T Uverse 18/1.5 plan that’s $55/mo.

The fact is, “computing” is totally integral to both our professional lives and our personal lifestyles and for our entertainment – so I think these investments are worth it.

the 27″ display itself uses high end components (IPS, pixel density, & LED backlit), with a market value of around $1500…not to mention the powerful mac attached to it. some interesting analysis of how it’s possible and why:

Now, you have IPS displays in the hands of everyone who buys the 27” iMac. This isn’t something that only designers will use – it’s something that every geek with enough disposable income or company funds will consider. It’s a much bigger market, and it’ll move many more IPS displays. Many sales -> many IPS panels moved -> massive economies of scale -> cheaper panels -> profit!

This is what I love about Apple. Nothing is driving innovation anymore in the PC market – the average computer today has little more capability than a computer from five years ago. Apple, however, is using the brute force of its market share to drive technology forward – by buying the latest stable technology and creating a vast market for it in the time it takes to make an update to the Apple Store, allowing it to mature and develop, while reaping the benefits. Then, the rest of the industry follows suit in a vain attempt to catch them, two years later, not realizing that as long as they keep seeking out the lowest bidder, they keep giving up the chase.

[From Jim Cloudman & Marco.org ]

just upgraded with 2 x 1.5TB samsung drives from newegg for $100 each.

before:

after

From Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD | Betanews:

According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple. Mac revenue market share in the “premium” price segment was 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.

from tuaw: the answer is gimmesometune + needledrop.

it totally works.

I splurged on the 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD a week ago, and it’s been driving me nuts that my Macbook Pro wouldn’t recognize the drive – even though it worked fine in my Macbook and from an external USB enclosure. Long story short, I finally discovered what the problem was. Here’s my forum post on it. Hopefully it may save some other MBP users the headache:

I finally got it working in my machine, and the solution is not what you’d expect it to be!

First, I was able to upgrade to FW1.1. That didn’t solve the problem: the drive was still not recognized by the MBP, although working fine in the USB enclosure and in my Macbook.

THE SOLUTION: after countless hours of trying different install options, I finally discovered this really obscure behavior:
– when the drive is installed the normal way (black side facing out), it’s NOT recognized by the MBP (you can tell because Disk Utility sees it as “generic external media”).
- when the drive is installed UPSIDE DOWN (silver side facing out) it works fine! Disk Utility sees it as “119.2 GB OCZ-VERT (serial#) Media”. Picture: http://skitch.com/richlin/bpb98/photo

The mounting screws don’t fit right when it’s upside down, so I figured that since the problem is likely caused by metal on metal contact, I taped a piece of paper to cover the silver side and installed it normal-side up. Sure enough, it’s working just fine now.

So far things seem to be working fine. Even boot camp is working. And now, I can get on with my life…

For my new Macbook Pro. Here’s a video opening 35 apps in 20 seconds.

cool behind the scenes look at how HD video is broadcast from Mt Everest using Macbook Pros with SSDs.