Wedding planning can sometimes be stress-inducing, but remember: one of the alternatives is…this!
As my future in-laws would say: Oy!
Categories
Yesterday’s Quest for RAM
I got a very sweet deal from my coworker James on a six-month old 12″
1.33 GHz PowerBook, which is only slightly slower than the current
top-of-the-line 12″ model (which is almost identical, except for the
1.5 GHz processor). The end result: I get a great and portable
development machine, cheap, and Wendy gets her first Mac in ages — my
old 12″ 867MHz model with WiFi-G, the RAM maxed out and hot sexy tech
support from Yours Truly.
The PowerBook had the stock 256MB RAM and could take a single PC2700
SODIMM up to 1GB in size. Maxing out the RAM in your computer is the
most cost-effective way to maximize its performance, so I started
looking about for places in town where I could purchase it.
Although I didn’t expect to buy the RAM at CPUsed,
one of the higher-profile Mac stores in Accordion City, I gave their
price list a look-see. When it comes to RAM, CPUsed is good for
determined what the “rip-off price”; if you’re paying the CPUsed price,
you’re getting ripped off.
The CPUsed price, according to their online price list: CDN$399.
Next: Carbon Computing, where those disgruntled with CPUsed tend to migrate.
Their price: CDN$449. Holy crap, someone beat CPUsed at their own game!
Compusmart, who have a branch just down the street from my house, charge CDN$620 for Hewlett-Packard brand RAM.
On a lark, I decided to call the new Apple Store at Yorkdale Mall, which opened just over a week ago.
Their price: CDN$625. That’s only four bucks less than the basic Mac Mini!
Fortunately, I never expected to purchase the RAM from any of the
aforementioned vendors. I just wanted to see how high the price for the
RAM I wanted could go.
The next step was to visit NewEgg.com to see how low the price could be. Their price: US$118, or CDN$147, plus shipping and possibly some duty (here’s their entry for the RAM).
Some Googling found what I was looking for: a 1GB KingMax RAM stick for CDN$176 from Canada Computers (where I bumped into the worried Mac fan from this entry). Some more Googling found generally positive reviews from other PowerBook users, so I bought my RAM from there.
The PowerBook is running just fine, showing a whopping 1.25 GB of RAM — the most I’ve ever had in any computer.
Thus far, it works like a charm!
For the technical and curious, here are the speed results reported by XBench:
- Results 133.32
- System Info
- Xbench Version 1.1.3
- System Version 10.4.1 (8B15)
- Physical RAM 1280 MB
- Model PowerBook6,4
- Processor PowerPC G4 @ 1.33 GHz
- L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
- L2 Cache 512K @ 1.33 GHz
- Bus Frequency 167 MHz
- Video Card GeForce FX Go5200
- Drive Type Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04-0
- Memory Test 133.32
- System 148.06
- Allocate 696.69 454.45 Kalloc/sec
- Fill 153.86 1224.72 MB/sec
- Copy 81.12 405.61 MB/sec
- Stream 121.24
- Copy 118.69 867.59 MB/sec [altivec]
- Scale 120.48 889.14 MB/sec [altivec]
- Add 123.87 792.75 MB/sec [altivec]
- Triad 122.06 745.76 MB/sec [altivec]
Categories
Some Mac Fans are Concerned
The recent announcement that Apple will switch from PowerPC to Intel chips had at least one Mac user worried: while pickup up some RAM at one of the computer shops along College Street West’s “Geek Row”, I overheard a guy say that he was a bit worried about it.
“I’m afraid it’s going to change the Mac experience,” he said.
I reminded him that the usability of the Mac didn’t lie in the
underlying processor, but in its operating system and user interface. I
cited the example of the Palm handhelds and compatible units, where
different models use different processors.
“The difference you will notice is faster machines, and since Intel can
actually manufacture chips in volume, you probably won’t be waiting as
long for your new computer order,” I said. “Who knows, Macs may get
cheaper, too. Economies of scale and all that.”
I don’t know if this guy would be a typical example of the Mac faithful
— a sometimes rabid group whose love for the Mac sometimes crosses the
bounds of rationality.
(Don’t get me wrong — I rather like the Mac platform. In fact, I’m making this entry on my new 12″ PowerBook.)
Apple spent years touting the superiority of the PowerPC chip, so this
sudden turnabout, while sensible from a technical point of view, may
seem like heresy to the Mac faithful. The Apple marketing team has an
interesting challenge ahead!
Perhaps they could recruit the Simpsons, as Intel did back in the days of the Pentium II [775K, QuickTime]…
This ad could be an allegory for what will happen to Apple’s computers. Click to the view the movie.
I was 13 years old when AC/DC’s best-known and best-loved album, Back in Black, came out. When I was a DJ at Crazy Go Nuts University’s Clark Hall Pub, its biggest single, the rock anthem You Shook Me All Night Long was
a surefire way to pack the dance floor — even the most hard-core
alt-rock music snobs would do a jig and “throw the horns”. I was 31
when I first performed You Shook Me on accordion. I will not reveal the ages I was when I got to live out those lyrics. Even today, a good 25 years after the album’s release and probably thousands of plays, Back in Black still is on high rotation on my iTunes.
It makes me quite happy to know that Back in Black has, according to this CNN story, made it into the top 5 biggest-selling albums of all time. Congrats, Angus and boys!
Just a quick reminder that my current abode is available for rental
this July 15th. If you want more details, check out this
blog entry!
posted this to The Farm, but I thought it bore
repeating here…
That’s the
My counterpart at Microsoft, Robert Scoble, writes:
…the
entire industry is shaking because of Steve Jobs’ decision. It’s
impossible to know all the details until the shaking subsides a bit.
It will be one of the most interesting weeks in technology
since I started blogging, that’s for sure.
Although the keynote isn’t being webcast,
tech blog Engadget
has been keeping everyone apprised of Steve Jobs’ announcements at
WWDC
2005 by live-blogging the event, and it’s official: Apple is
switching to Intel chips!
The way he’s been doing it is quite dramatic — the keynote
slides,
which were presented on Mac OS X using Apple’s Keynote app was running
on a P4 3.6GHz!
Some quick notes, based on the available info thus
far:
- Two years ago, Jobs promised a
3.0GHz
PowerMac, and hasn’t been able to deliver since the PowerPC still
hasn’t hit those speeds.
- The
Intel architecture also offers more processing power for less
electrical power: 70 integer performance units/watt versus PowerPC’s
15.
- A personal obersavtion: You may want to keep
an eye on this page,
which shows PowerPC G5 configurations outperforming Intel
configurations. I expect that it will disappear from Apple’s
site shortly.
- The
rumours about the “Just in Case” scenario — the ones that mentioned
that a team within Apple has been making sure that OS X compiles on
Intel — are true! According to Jobs, for the past 5 years,”Mac OS X
has been
living a secret double life.”
- The lowdown for
Mac developers:
- Widgets, scripts and
Java should just work from the get-go.
- Cocoa/Xcode apps should need “just a small tweak” and a
recompile.
- Carbon/Xcode apps will need “a few
weeks of tweaking” and a recompile.
- Carbon/Metrowerks apps should be moved to XCode.
- A new technology,
Rosetta, will run existing PowerPC apps on
Intel.
This may be all the
tech
publications and sites talk about for the next little while…
Apartment Hunting
I love a challenge, and luckily for me, I have one this weekend. The
timing of both my housemates moving out plus the fact that my fiancee
lives in Boston and has a job that keeps her very busy (along with
wedding planning) means that we need to land an apartment this weekend.
We’ll spending this Saturday and Sunday viewing a number of apartments
in the High Park and Roncesvalles
neighbourhoods, and I will have my chequebook at the ready. If you’re a
landlord in our search area or know of a two-bed two-bath unit (house
or condo) that’s going to be available July 1st, let me know in the
comments!
Blogger/Librarian Get-Together at The Bishop and the Belcher
Wendy, j and I
will be joining a number of librarians from j’s librarian conference
starting at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night at The Bishop and the Belcher.
There are more details here.
Librarians, gentlemen. Did you hear me? Librarians!
Kickass Karaoke
Kickass Karaoke returns to the Rivoli this Sunday night, and Wendy and I will be there!