Apple’s Aluminum Keyboard
was the best stocking stuffer for me this Christmas. It is small and cool-looking and has 2 USB 2.0 ports so I can hook up my digital camera to it( but not the iPhone). What’s more, my cats do not like to sit on it.
Best of all is the action, position and feel of the low-profile keys, similar to the feel of the keys on the MacBook’s built-in keyboard. If only I could admit to typing — and I do not — I would say that all in all this is the best keyboard I’ve used in absolute years . . .
. . . even including the old ADB Mac keyboard. I don’t mean the new old ADB keyboards, the flimsy ones that came with the 7500s or the beige G3s, I mean the old old built-to-last IIci or IIcx ADB Mac keyboards. The ones sold separately. So back then if you were thinking about buying a Mac, you first purchased the keyboard for around $160 and that made a sufficient-enough hole in your pocket as to put you onto the other side of commitment. You remember those, don’t you, Virginia? — they were swell, we became so attached that we even used to lug them around the city to jobs. Guess what, the Aluminum’s a lot lighter.
And the key response? Well, in memory, you can’t beat the old ones, but, I’m not so sure they were all that much better. Especially when you compare design and cash outlay.
Not as a test or anything, but just because I am a klutz, about a week ago I got some coffee on the keyboard. (Mind you, we’re not talking Major Spill.) Nonplussed but recovering quickly enough for someone with “experienced reflexes,” I mopped up what I could see. The keyboard has not stopped working yet.
Matter of fact, I am seriously considering buying one for the office.
One eensy negative: I have not yet gotten used to the position of the function key and have to look away from my work each time to use the fn+F11 in order to get to the desktop. (I could probably take care of that somewhere in the Keyboard system preferences, but got other of fish to fry right now.)

Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Sweet Numbers
The Mac base is growing dramatically in the U.S. Gartner estimates Apple's Third Quarter U.S. growth this year to be in the double-digits with shipments growing a whopping 37.2 percent compared with SQLY.
According to both Gartner and Net Applications (the web measurement company) Apple’s market share of U.S. personal computers was 8.1 percent in the Third Calendar Quarter 2007, up from 6.2 percent during the same period 2006. Net Application’s numbers for January 2006 show Apple’s market share was 4.6 percent. So in a little less than two years, growth at over 176 percent is impressive.
This correlates nicely with the large increase in pre-registration for Macworld Expo (28 percent over last year) and the increases in Macs reported across the nation on college campuses.
Take Cornell for instance. In 2000, their Mac toters made up only five percent of students and faculty; now students’ personal computers running OS X comprise 21 percent of the total. Or Princeton: 60 percent of on-campus computer sales in 2007 were Macs.
Why?
I asked some of my engineering friends why such growth? Their answer: superior hardware, especially the MacBookPro.
Interestingly enough the same WindowsXP sp2 image I install on Dell Latitude 430s and 630s installs at least three times as fast in VMWareFusion on a MacBook Pro. Same CPU. Different chip set.
According to both Gartner and Net Applications (the web measurement company) Apple’s market share of U.S. personal computers was 8.1 percent in the Third Calendar Quarter 2007, up from 6.2 percent during the same period 2006. Net Application’s numbers for January 2006 show Apple’s market share was 4.6 percent. So in a little less than two years, growth at over 176 percent is impressive.
This correlates nicely with the large increase in pre-registration for Macworld Expo (28 percent over last year) and the increases in Macs reported across the nation on college campuses.
Take Cornell for instance. In 2000, their Mac toters made up only five percent of students and faculty; now students’ personal computers running OS X comprise 21 percent of the total. Or Princeton: 60 percent of on-campus computer sales in 2007 were Macs.
Why?
I asked some of my engineering friends why such growth? Their answer: superior hardware, especially the MacBookPro.
Interestingly enough the same WindowsXP sp2 image I install on Dell Latitude 430s and 630s installs at least three times as fast in VMWareFusion on a MacBook Pro. Same CPU. Different chip set.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
MacBook & The “Internal Speaker” Mystery
A couple of weeks ago I wanted to watch the “Don’t Give Up On Vista” video that appeared on the home page of the New York Times website. I could see the video on my MacBook, a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running OS X v. 10.4.11, but could not hear the sound.
When I clicked on the Sound icon in the menu bar, the slider was grayed out. However when I plugged in external speakers I got sound. Now I was stumped.
First I looked in Sound Preferences. In the Output pane there was no evidence of Internal Speakers and all options were grayed out. But I knew my internal speakers were functioning because earlier I had heard the boot chime.
When I looked in the Input pane, it showed external speakers plugged into the Audio line-in port. I was able to move both the Balance and the Output sliders, check and uncheck the square next to Mute.
I unplugged the external speakers, trashed the com.apple.soundpref.plist in ~/Library/Preferences, logged out and logged back in to see if this would fix the problem. It didn’t.
Then I used an external firewire drive as the boot disk. The Sound Preference Output pane was still grayed out. No sound from the internal speakers.
After rebooting to my MacBook’s hard drive, I was going to call Apple with what I thought was a hardware problem, probably somewhere on the board. But I had some writing deadlines and did not feel like driving to the nearest Genius Bar and I was even more reluctant to ship my MacBook to Apple for repair.
Since I had spent most of the morning trying to fix my internal speakers, I decided to listen to the "Don‘t Give Up” video again. And in order to get sound, I’d have to plug in my external speakers.
This time it just so happened that the sun was behind some clouds so there was not very much light in the room. And I had to bend down close to the left side of the MacBook to plug in the speaker cable. As I did so, I peered into the port and could see a red light shining inside. That's funny. I didn’t remember seeing a red light there before: wonder what it means. Must be on the logic board close to the Line-In port, I thought. So what to do? — I’m not going to spend time taking this thing apart — I used a bent paper clip and stuck it inside the port to poke around a bit, for what reason I do not know. (Be polite and call me curious.) And I figured I had a hardware problem anyway, what more harm could I do? (Lots. Like void the warranty. . . .)
After a couple of gentle jabs producing lots of static (I don’t recommend you’re doing this by the way), the red light went out. Then I heard PC talking. I moused up to the sound icon and this time I was able to move the slider bar up to increase the sound.
Later I read that the internal speaker malfunction is caused by a faulty I/O board. Apple will replace it since my MacBook is still covered by AppleCare. But I think I’ll wait for a while to see if it happens again.
Oh. And if you’d like to see the “Don’t Give Up on Vista” video, click here.
When I clicked on the Sound icon in the menu bar, the slider was grayed out. However when I plugged in external speakers I got sound. Now I was stumped.
First I looked in Sound Preferences. In the Output pane there was no evidence of Internal Speakers and all options were grayed out. But I knew my internal speakers were functioning because earlier I had heard the boot chime.
When I looked in the Input pane, it showed external speakers plugged into the Audio line-in port. I was able to move both the Balance and the Output sliders, check and uncheck the square next to Mute.
I unplugged the external speakers, trashed the com.apple.soundpref.plist in ~/Library/Preferences, logged out and logged back in to see if this would fix the problem. It didn’t.
Then I used an external firewire drive as the boot disk. The Sound Preference Output pane was still grayed out. No sound from the internal speakers.
After rebooting to my MacBook’s hard drive, I was going to call Apple with what I thought was a hardware problem, probably somewhere on the board. But I had some writing deadlines and did not feel like driving to the nearest Genius Bar and I was even more reluctant to ship my MacBook to Apple for repair.
Since I had spent most of the morning trying to fix my internal speakers, I decided to listen to the "Don‘t Give Up” video again. And in order to get sound, I’d have to plug in my external speakers.
This time it just so happened that the sun was behind some clouds so there was not very much light in the room. And I had to bend down close to the left side of the MacBook to plug in the speaker cable. As I did so, I peered into the port and could see a red light shining inside. That's funny. I didn’t remember seeing a red light there before: wonder what it means. Must be on the logic board close to the Line-In port, I thought. So what to do? — I’m not going to spend time taking this thing apart — I used a bent paper clip and stuck it inside the port to poke around a bit, for what reason I do not know. (Be polite and call me curious.) And I figured I had a hardware problem anyway, what more harm could I do? (Lots. Like void the warranty. . . .)
After a couple of gentle jabs producing lots of static (I don’t recommend you’re doing this by the way), the red light went out. Then I heard PC talking. I moused up to the sound icon and this time I was able to move the slider bar up to increase the sound.
Later I read that the internal speaker malfunction is caused by a faulty I/O board. Apple will replace it since my MacBook is still covered by AppleCare. But I think I’ll wait for a while to see if it happens again.
Oh. And if you’d like to see the “Don’t Give Up on Vista” video, click here.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Macworld Conference & Expo
Macworld Expo January 15-18, 2008, The Largest Ever
Excitement builds. We are two weeks away from Macworld Conference and Expo held at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. With over 400 exhibitors and a 28 percent increase in pre-show registration, it promises to be the biggest show in expo's history. Stay tuned. Or should I say iTuned? (sorry)
The show brings together Mac devotees from many fields. These include the traditional Apple strongholds of education, small business, advertising, music and publishing – the production areas of print, image, video and sound are the haunts of that 900-pound gorilla named Mac – so the audience will be largely a creative one.
Steve’s Keynote And The Hot New Rumors
Steve Jobs gives the keynote address at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 15th. Like most Mac devotees, I wonder what he'll announce this year. Is it hardware or software accounting for the gleam in his eye? Will he satisfy all the hot new rumors swirling about water coolers and Apple blogspots? Introduce the multi-touch MacTablet? Or iTunes movie rentals?
Feeding the rumors was the recent New York Times article (December 28) claiming that Apple has been in talks with Hollywood moguls for digital movie rental rights via iTunes as well as the leaked 1.1.3 iPhone update that supposedly fixes and expands many facets of the software, a scaled-down version of OS X, loaded onto Apple’s brisk-selling phone.
Who knows what Steve will say, but all eyes and ears will be focused on the simulcast.
Mac Base Grows Dramatically In U.S.
Although nationally both consumer and corporate computer sales were weaker than expected late this year, the Mac base is growing in the U.S.
Gartner estimates Apple's Third Quarter U.S. growth this year to be in the double-digits with shipments growing a whopping 37.2 percent compared with SQLY.
This correlates nicely with the large increase in pre-registration for Macworld Expo and the increases in Macs reported across the nation on college campuses. Take Cornell for instance. In 2000, their Mac toters made up only five percent of students and faculty; now students’ personal computers running OS X comprise 21 percent of the total. Or Princeton: 60 percent of on-campus computer sales in 2007 were Macs.
2008 Expo Highlights
In addition to the keynote address, there are pavilions for developers (presumably on The Mac Developer Boulevard), special interest and user groups. There's a Dice Career Fair for Mac professionals, a Learning Center sponsored by Macworld, a Podcast Studio, a Dream Studio for making music, even a John Lennon Bus Tour — I'd hop on that one — and, get this, a Microsoft Blogger Lounge. However, I doubt we’ll meet Bill Gates there: he gives the International CES keynote in Las Vegas January 6.
Exhibitors include old stalwarts like Adobe Systems and Quark, Alsoft, Belkin, Extensis, FileMaker, Griffin, LaCie, Marware, Newer, OtherWorld Computing and Roxio. Relative new names are also represented, Parallels, VMWare, ProjectWizards and many others supporting or accessorizing iPods and iPhones.
Noticeably absent? Gamers.
Excitement builds. We are two weeks away from Macworld Conference and Expo held at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. With over 400 exhibitors and a 28 percent increase in pre-show registration, it promises to be the biggest show in expo's history. Stay tuned. Or should I say iTuned? (sorry)
The show brings together Mac devotees from many fields. These include the traditional Apple strongholds of education, small business, advertising, music and publishing – the production areas of print, image, video and sound are the haunts of that 900-pound gorilla named Mac – so the audience will be largely a creative one.
Steve’s Keynote And The Hot New Rumors
Steve Jobs gives the keynote address at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 15th. Like most Mac devotees, I wonder what he'll announce this year. Is it hardware or software accounting for the gleam in his eye? Will he satisfy all the hot new rumors swirling about water coolers and Apple blogspots? Introduce the multi-touch MacTablet? Or iTunes movie rentals?
Feeding the rumors was the recent New York Times article (December 28) claiming that Apple has been in talks with Hollywood moguls for digital movie rental rights via iTunes as well as the leaked 1.1.3 iPhone update that supposedly fixes and expands many facets of the software, a scaled-down version of OS X, loaded onto Apple’s brisk-selling phone.
Who knows what Steve will say, but all eyes and ears will be focused on the simulcast.
Mac Base Grows Dramatically In U.S.
Although nationally both consumer and corporate computer sales were weaker than expected late this year, the Mac base is growing in the U.S.
Gartner estimates Apple's Third Quarter U.S. growth this year to be in the double-digits with shipments growing a whopping 37.2 percent compared with SQLY.
This correlates nicely with the large increase in pre-registration for Macworld Expo and the increases in Macs reported across the nation on college campuses. Take Cornell for instance. In 2000, their Mac toters made up only five percent of students and faculty; now students’ personal computers running OS X comprise 21 percent of the total. Or Princeton: 60 percent of on-campus computer sales in 2007 were Macs.
2008 Expo Highlights
In addition to the keynote address, there are pavilions for developers (presumably on The Mac Developer Boulevard), special interest and user groups. There's a Dice Career Fair for Mac professionals, a Learning Center sponsored by Macworld, a Podcast Studio, a Dream Studio for making music, even a John Lennon Bus Tour — I'd hop on that one — and, get this, a Microsoft Blogger Lounge. However, I doubt we’ll meet Bill Gates there: he gives the International CES keynote in Las Vegas January 6.
Exhibitors include old stalwarts like Adobe Systems and Quark, Alsoft, Belkin, Extensis, FileMaker, Griffin, LaCie, Marware, Newer, OtherWorld Computing and Roxio. Relative new names are also represented, Parallels, VMWare, ProjectWizards and many others supporting or accessorizing iPods and iPhones.
Noticeably absent? Gamers.
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