Xaero.org

As anyone who has known me knows, I’m definitely a Mac user. I’ve used Apple hardware on and off since the Apple II days. The first Mac I actually bought, however, was a G4 tower. Most of the time before that was spent hating Apple and suffering in a Windows world.

This went on until a good friend took the time to show me what his G3 could actually do. Of course, back then, Mac OS 8 was the de facto OS and Mac OS X was still a research project. I initially resisted but started liking what I saw enough to say “I want one!”. It was then that I bought my first Macintosh, a 400 Mhz PowerPC G4 PowerMac. It came with 64 MB of RAM, an 2x AGP ATI video card with 16 MB of RAM and a whopping 20 GB hard drive. It also came with the venerable 400 MHz PowerPC 7400 (G4) processor with the AltiVec “Velocity Engine” vector processing unit and 1 MB of backside cache. This CPU smoked any Intel Pentium 3 at the time and was classified by the U.S. Government as a supercomputer since it was capable of at least a Gigaflop of performance. Another nifty component this machine has is a gigabit Ethernet interface. No other PC I can remember at that time (we’re talking late 1999, early 2000) had that and most didn’t have an Ethernet interface (56k was still the bomb-diggity). Needless to say, for $1599, this was a very nice Macintosh.

I endured many months of ridicule but really enjoyed my G4. One very interesting point was that the Playstation emulator, Connectix Virtual Game Station, actually ran Playstation games on my G4 faster than a Playstation! I continued to love my G4 until I decided it was time to go back to school.

At that point, I got my first Apple notebook, the Powerbook G4 Titanium 867. It basically had double the specs of the PowerMac. I wound up selling my PowerMac to a friend that needed a new machine which I thoroughly regret to this day. I had been running Mac OS X 10.0, then 10.1 on the PowerMac with Mac OS 9 “Classic” alongside it. The PowerBook came with Mac OS X 10.2 “Jaguar” and it was a rather large bump in speed from earlier releases as well as actually having software to use.

Shortly before graduation in 2004 I bought a shiny new PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0) as well as a 23″ Apple flat panel (graduation present to myself of course!). It had easily six to ten times the speed of my notebook and is what I currently still have. Not planning on selling it and making the same mistake twice!

Since that time, a subtle but continuous shift has been going on with the direction Apple has taken its business. Back when Mac OS X debuted, Apple was very gung-ho about it’s core business: selling Macs. It also had a miniscule share of the overall PC market, so it was still playing catch up after the success of the iMac line. Development of new hardware and Mac OS X happened at a frenzied pace, as evidenced by all the announcements of cool new technology. This continued to happen until around 2006, when the iPod really started becoming a large part of Apple’s revenue. Then the iPhone debuted in 2007. And there was the Apple TV. Suddenly, Apple is no longer a PC maker and is instead a consumer electronics maker. They even dropped “Computer” from their name.

I started noticing many changes to what were Apple’s core business: Macs and Mac OS X. Now there’s nothing but tie-ins to the iTunes store or some other non-PC product or service. New notebooks now have HDCP built in to appease Hollywood in its neverending quest to make water not wet. Everything Apple does surrounds the iPod line or the iPhone now. People say it’s supposed to be a halo effect to get you to buy a Mac but I call bullshit on this one. If Apple can sell an iPhone to someone who just wants to make phone calls, they will. There’s no indication at the AT&T store that you should also own a Macintosh to get the best experience. Apple is now the new Sony: a consumer electronics behemoth that does much, but nothing very well in particular. Their OS is now comparable to Windows: a tiny portion of it is engineered to get stuff done and the rest is engineered to get in your way and wrest control of your computer from you. And resist as I could, I just couldn’t stay away. Until now.

For the past several months, I’ve been evaluating more than one Free/Open source operating system for use as a replacement. After lots of time spent on all three, I wound up settling on Debian GNU/Linux. Why? Because Debian is a very mature and actively developed distribution of Linux. I tried Ubuntu for a month and a half and it just feels like it’s got more “stuff” than I need. I presume this is for handholding new Linux users. It would appear that I’m not the only one getting a little more than sick of the way Apple treats its power users. Two “A-list” bloggers (gawd I hate that word), Mark Pilgrim and Cory Doctorow, are also former Mac users and for very much the same reasons I am (only they did it 3 years ago).

I’ve used Linux plenty in the past, first installing Red Hat 5.1 on an old 486 back in the day and even managing to get X windows to bend to my will. Today’s Linux distros are nothing like that. Everything just kind of works and the stuff that doesn’t isn’t so hard to fix. I would place the hardware support in Linux about where Windows 98 was: if it works, it works, but if not, prepare to get dirty. To that end, I built a pretty nice box:

* Intel Quad Core Q6600 CPU

* 2 GB PC-8500 DDR 2 RAM

* 1 TB Seagate SATA hard disk

* Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT video card with 1GB RAM

* Gigabyte EP45-DS3l motherboard

* Logitech wireless mouse, wired keyboard

* Repurposed LaCie Big Disk Extreme 500GB Firewire 800 drive

* PCI express Firewire 800 card

* Dual layer DVD burner

By today’s standards, these specs are probably a mid-range Windows Vista machine. Yet, by running Debian, I get spectacular performance, no annoying product tie-ins, and best of all, my operating system does what I want and nothing more (yes, that’s you, DRM). In layman’s terms, this means I control my computer at all times instead of being forced to prop up an entire industry dedicated to preventing me from doing what I want with the stuff I’ve got. For those of you with entirely too much time (hey, you’ve made it this far), read here about what goes into ensuring you can’t “pirate” content on Windows Vista.

As a parting note, it was nice to build a PC again after a 4 year hiatus. I got all that hardware for less than the cost of a Mac mini and it’s certainly more capable. I was rather shocked at just how cheap and powerful PC hardware has become as of late. Since I didn’t have to buy a PC and pay the Windows tax, I also saved more cash. And in these times, that’s certaintly a good thing. Next time I’ll post a list of what apps I’m using so any Linux enthusiasts out there can compare and contrast.

So long Apple, it was fun while you were a PC company.

Ok, so I finally got frustrated with the whole situation in my previous post and decided I would try to revert my firmware back to 1.1.1 (what the iPod Touch shipped with when I bought it). It was slightly tricky but not too difficult. In a nutshell, you will need:

* A Windows computer (can be 2000 or XP)
* iTunes 7.5
* The 1.1.1 firmware
* Nerves of steel

Just kidding about that last one. Seriously, I don’t understand why you can’t do this on a Mac, but whatever.

First, download iTunes 7.5 from here (link) and install it.

Next, download the 1.1.1 firmware from here (link) and put it in a safe spot.

Now, the fun part. Hope your iPod’s data has been backed up. Connect your iPod to your Windows machine with the USB cable. iTunes will tell you it belongs to another library and that you will need to erase it if you want to sync it to this computer’s library. Go ahead and do so. I think you can probably ignore the warning but I’m not sure if the iPod will show up in iTunes.

Once that’s done, make sure you are on the iPod sync screen. Next, hold down both the home button and the power button at the same time. The home button is the round button at the bottom of the iPod and the power button is the small square button at the top. Once the iPod disappears from iTunes, release the power button but continue to hold the home button. A screen should appear saying you’re in recovery mode. Bingo!

Now, hold the shift key on the keyboard and click the restore button on the iPod sync screen. You should now be able to select the firmware file you just downloaded. Select it and let iTunes restore the firmware. Now you’re back in business! You can now re-jailbreak your iPod (if that’s what you wanna do) or just bask in the glow of not having to see that annoying nag screen again. If you buy music from the iTunes store you will want to follow my previous post to undo the changes you made to your hosts file. Though, if you’re as frustrated as I was, I doubt you’ll want to anymore.

As an aside, I find it a bit saddening that Apple is becoming the new Microsoft. They really have changed into something I no longer like. I remember early this decade when Mac OS X first came out and it seemed as though Apple was the little guy who had finally had some legs to stand on. Now they just want to sell you overpriced hardware and could care less about treating you as a customer. I guess when you’re winning you don’t care who you walk all over. Lame.

Looks like Apple is turning into the IRS. Now they’re nickel and dimeing you after your purchase. As if their users don’t pay enough for pretty hardware that does the same thing as a beige box PC… Ok, seriously Apple, why the need to annoy the shit out of your users by nagging them to buy software for the iPod touch that comes free with the iPhone? OK, I’m done complaining (for now).

I’m usually hesitant to upgrade the software on my iPods since they rarely add new features and are more commonly used to clamp down on users (see the iPhone bricking debacle) or refresh DRM but I thought the 1.1.4 update might be worth it. So lo and behold, I plug my 16 Gig iPod touch in, hit the upgrade software button and let it do it’s thing. Afterwards I expect to just have to resync all my content back to it but what am I greeted with? A nag screen telling me to buy a bunch of crap software I don’t even want. I gave myself a day to cool off before figuring out how to block this since the only options are to “Take me to the iTunes store” or “Remind me later”. So much for choice when it comes to Apple, huh?

Here’s a quick and dirty way to block this annoyance. Be warned though, that it will likely block some or all of your access to the iTunes store, but you don’t really buy crippled music anyways, do you?

Pop open a terminal and type “sudo vi /etc/hosts” (without the quotes) and hit enter. You should see two to four lines with 127.0.0.1 and possibly ::1 and fe80::1 if you’re using IPv6. Type GG to go to the end of the file and insert the following:
<br />
127.0.0.1 ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net<br />
Hit ZZ to save the file and exit. Now type “sudo dscacheutil -flushcache” to flush your DNS cache. This effectively prevents your computer from using the iTunes store, which is precisely what happens when you plug your iPod Touch into your docking cable (By the way, thanks for including an actual dock with the IPT Apple. Real elegance there…) and it loads a web page inside iTunes that nags you to buy the January software. You’ll get an error message about the network connection to the iTunes store being refused but you only have to hit OK to be dropped back to the iPod management screen.

Obviously all Apple has to do to disable this is to change the hostname you connect to but they wouldn’t really do that to further annoy you, would they?

It does appear that when you do actually buy the software, a file called nikita_receipt.plist is placed in /private/var/mobile/applications. I’ll be looking for a way to add the necessary data to that file. For now I’m not sure since all plist files seem to be just a binary blob instead of the XML format they used to be in versions of OS X past.

I’ve happily been using the PowerMac G5 I bought in mid-2004. During this time, Apple has released many, many updates (some specific to the G5). These days, not so much, especially now that all their machines have Intel processors.

One nagging thing about the G5 (and the Mac Pro, from what I’ve read) is that the internal fans are controlled by the operating system. Yes, there are benefits to that, but there’s one major drawback which has yet to stay fixed as far as the G5: The annoying fan rev-up problem.

This has been quite a contentious issue since the G5′s release and seemed to particularly impact the late 2004 (Rev B.) G5s. I own a dual 2 Ghz G5 and this problem is still a… problem. For those that aren’t familiar with the the fan rev up problem, basically it is this: every so often, no matter what you do, even if it’s just mousing over the dock, your fans will spin up, sometimes sounding like a 747 taking off. This is the definition of annoying.

I can remember countless forum posts on the topic when it first arose and the solutions offered. The one solution that seems to actually work to this day is to change your processor speed setting from the default Automatic to Highest under Energy Saver under System Preferences. While I’m glad this does work (well, the fans don’t go supersonic, but they do rev a little occasionally), I don’t think I should have to fix the problem myself. I happen to like the Automatic setting because it clocks down the CPUs as needed, therefore keeping them cooler and using less energy.

In Mac OS X 10.3.8, the problem was at its worst. Apple finally responded and fixed it in 10.3.9, which I was happily using until Tiger (10.4) came out. From then on, it was fan rev city. As of this post, the latest version of Mac OS X, 10.4.9 still does not fix this. I can’t figure out why this hasn’t been completely fixed, but it sure is annoying. If anyone out there knows of a better, more permanent fix so I can go back to using the Automatic processor setting, I’d love to hear it. For the record, my Apple Hardware Test disc reports no problems.

Apple’s OSx86 10.4.4 Security Broken: “Happy Valentine’s Day… from Maxxuss. According to The OSx86 Project, the ‘hacking guru’ has broken Apple’s security measures in OS X 10.4.4, which were stronger than all previous releases combined. The article has a great discussion on the implications of this event.”

(Via digg.)

Very interesting article on something I’ve been contemplating since the iPod’s introduction…

Apple: The iPod Company That Happens to Make Computers? The Numbers Say “Yes”: “

When Apple released their results for the first quarter of 2006 people oohed and ahhed over the number of iPods sold while fretting mightily over Apple’s very conservative guidance for the second quarter. The less than enthusiastic guidance is based on Apple’s fears that the market for non-Intel based Macs will…”

(Via AppleMatters.)

Why Apple Really Ditched PowerPC: “Apple wants to make their switch to Intel chips seem like a no-brainer, but the reality of it was a lot more complicated than just faster chips for Macs. Apple’s claims of their Intel systems being ’4-5x faster’ than their PowerPC systems is a little much to swallow, especially with Intel Macs landing in users’ hands and failing to live up to the hype. So if these Intel chips aren’t really that much faster than the G5, why did Apple make the switch? The answer to this question is a lot more interesting than what Apple’s telling you.

”

(Via MacSlash.)

With MacWorld only 5 days away, I was wondering what new announcements everybody is looking forward to. I’m personally looking forward to hearing about the long-rumored about iWorks suite. Microsoft Office on Mac OS X is slow and kludgy at best (and I’m using a dual 2 Ghz G5). AppleWorks is horribly out of date (better than five years old). We need a modern solution, Apple! I’m also interested in hearing about the sub-$500 “headless” Mac. Argh, the anticipation is killing me already!

Elite Computers & Software, MACadam Computers and MacTech Systems have launched TellOnApple.org, a Web site created by the group of former Apple Authorized Resellers as a means to document and share any information concerning unethical or illegal business practices of Apple…

From MacMinute.

Apple posted updates to both their Bluetooth and iSync software recently. I’ve been using both for a few days now to sync up my P800 and I can finally say it works well.

Previously, I’d have to continually re-pair the phone with my Mac to sync, which was a pain. Kinda defies the purpose of even having Bluetooth, right? Well, I can safely say that Bluetooth 1.5 has changed that. You don’t get to make your own pairing key, but it works without a hitch.

Now if only Salling Clicker would be released for the P800…