* Posts by Patrick

50 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jan 2008

Teens reject Microsoft's Zune

Patrick

It is not just teens!

My 84 year old grandmother had also rejected Microsoft's Zune and has flat out refused to buy one.

Now that says something!

U.S. unemployment rate jumps to 8.5 per cent

Patrick

oh

...shit...

Microsoft courts enterprises with Windows 7

Patrick
Paris Hilton

Eha what???

What a total load of pig swill! Nothing in thay will make me believe the marketing codswallow of reducing costs or making life better. Absolitely nothing. That sheiBt is reserved for the few older generation of clueless managers to lap up like dogs in front of the Microsoft marketing feed trough of lies.

Tired of this crap so Paris becauase she like darkness, beds and video tape as well!

Apple White MacBook Early 2009

Patrick
Jobs Halo

The future is even hairier

Apple owns ARM license, has a crack pot dev company for low power CPU designs, has its own battery design+fab capabilities, and has OS X running on ARM on the iPhone and iPod variant. And the longest battery life 8 1/2+ hours per charge on their largest beefiest hardware laptop.

Now watch Apple drop an ARM cpu on the next round of Mac laptops and let you run for 3-5 days on a single battery charge doing all your normal web browsing / email consuming tasks or switch to the Intel cpu and 2nd Nvidia GPU 9600GM for super crunching for 8 1/2+ hours on a single charge.

The futures bright, the other side only has flimsy plastic or chromed plastic creaky boxes and Vista, low battery life, poor thermal design, minimal thermal management, and a whole mess of hurt of bad stigma to overcome from the Vista days.

Microsoft celebrates 10,000 US patents

Patrick
Alert

How many patents?

How many patents does it take for Microsoft to release a good OS that will make everyone stop and think 'Wow this is such a really fantastic Operating System, I'm glad I upgraded to it.'

So far 10,000 patents and I'm still waiting....

*cue the crickets chirping in the background*

Brits and Yanks struck with embarasment embarrassment

Patrick
Boffin

Same old problem

It's the English adopted alphabet. It does not have enough symbols to represent all the sounds. It's Germanic alphabet mismatch all over again, why so many futhark variations?

If we adopted for example the Icelandic alphabet we would have a hell of a lot better chance of writing a word that a reader could pronounce with near 100% accuracy the first time spoken.

Point the finger where the blame is due.

Even common names are brought in from the outside.

Take the name Peter if written in Icelandic is Pétur which matches the mouth sounds a lot closer. It's a much closer fit even though the name is not even of Icelandic origin their alphabet handles it heads and shoulders above what our adopted alphabet can do for it.

Microsoft SKUs Windows 7 clarity

Patrick
Coat

slackware bah.

@E and the LInux junkies. Wake up and smell the coffee, more people are installing Hackinstoshes and accessing the internet now than all your LInux combined. Linux is becoming an uber minority.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/767/1050767/linux-overtaken-hackintosh

Back to the OP topic:

Its 2006 all over again, has Microsoft not learned anything from Vista? Where is the business justification for so many versions? Vista has only had single digit percentage uptake in Windows Key #1 market -- business. Where do they think they are making it easy for business managers and it departments the the ilk of this deployment strategy?

Only thing W7 can win over Vista is the latter was a pig on the hardware that delivered very little bacon. Now its years later, hardware has caught up, hardware companies have had years to get used to writing drivers, and MS has a chance to really show the world its trying hard to win back the minds of its core markets. But then go and take two steps backwards by pulling the same 6 versions and then tossing on an oh except in certain countries its not 6 versions.

Or maybe trying hard is the key word here. I have never seen a Windows release go to Beta only once then rapidly to a single RC then chucked out the door. I've never felt anything so rushed from Redmond as I have with W7. Lets hope when they chuck it out the door its not a fetus being chucked out the womb.

Asus unwraps 10in Eee with 9.5-hour battery life

Patrick
Joke

Cue the obligitory...

Cue the obligitory wow factor I'm impressed that using cut down hardware and small screen that they've pulled off battery life on par with Apple who are using the latest top end components from nvidia 9600 and nvidia 9400 chips and a top end 17 inch ultra Wide colour gamut LCD screen and full kit of add on gear. Good to see all that PC engineering and R&D being spent.

Now at least they've done it at cut down price which is consolation fir something.

Obama gets to keep his BlackBerry

Patrick
Linux

Theres your problem right there Obama

Obama, your problem is you bought a BLACKBERRY. If you bought a WHITEBERRY you would not have the same problem.

In fact, you should have just gone all white with a snazzy new iPhone in white. Oh wait, you just found out you and your team ran smack up against the PCtards in the whitehouse who want you to use old Windows computers, Office 2003 and Microsoft Exchange. Why because of security, you know, have to keep all records of communications and such. Of course sir, I know that this security teams PCtard built solution conveniently lost over 5 million emails of the Bush administration. Yes, its a feature of Exchange and Outlook.

I don't think you understand sir, your macs may work, you might be the hip go to team for bailing out the world. But you will just have to put them all away, along with your gmail accounts and facebook access to get the word out to your supporters. Welcome to reality sir, ruled by PCtards who define their own standard, build their own broken systems from the core up and then expect the only way to make it work is to force you all to use it.

Deal with it.

Sun MySQLers barred from Oz

Patrick
Joke

Reverse treatment

I've had lovely treatment in London airports from security screeners accusing me of trying to blow up the aircraft with a packet of unopened chocolate biscuits (try to nut that one out) to then being accused by customs checkpoints of trying to sneak into the country when all flghts were shut down due to weather and all carriers were putting passengers up on hotels for the night. It's high time the reverse happens. The Open Sauce crowd should have been asked if they were smuggling in bees and promptly sent packing with their hives. Both UK and USA entry treatment are rougher than what Ive received processing entry in Oz. But then they flew to the state were everyone married their cousin and had to enter there.

Microsoft smooths Windows 7 snafu

Patrick
Stop

Free Zune

All those who had difficulty downloading Windows 7 beta will get a free 30GB Zune. Those who did get to download Windows 7 then were a tad disappointed that it felt like running Vista, no 30GB Zune for you.

Mac OS 10.5.6 problems? Apple suggests shampoo

Patrick
Happy

No mini, MBP issues

No Mac Mini ppc or MBP intel issues here. Both updated fine.

Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus

Patrick
Stop

APPLE DELETES WEB PAGE - ADMITS WRONG ADVICE - Story Over

Apple officially removed the web page admitting that it is an out of date article (we had debates on this same page over 2 years ago!) and was improperly advising users to install software that is no longer needed.

Some obscure blogger picks up on it, next The Register is on it like flies on sheet and the Wintards get 15 minutes of jollies.

Whats the official word now?

"""

We're sorry.

We can't find the article you're looking for.

Please return to the Apple Support homepage.

"""

End of Story

Intel apologises for 'inappropriate' iPhone critique

Patrick
Thumb Down

But wait again..

It runs slow as shit, even on standard OS X desktop Adobe's so-called properly ported flash runs 10 times slower than on Windows. And yet you want Apple to accept and approve such half-assed ports?

Thank god you are not in the product release department though you would fit fine in the marketing department.

Apple faces lawsuit over wobbly 3G claims

Patrick
Pirate

Victim of their own success

Poor Apple, maybe its the huge uptake of phones. Engadget, Yahoo, Quantas and others are starting to release browsing data showing 97% of all mobile browsing of their site is iPhone/iTouch related and are putting all their development dollars making iPhone specific websites (~15% iTouch, remainder iPhone). So thats a huge number of people in major cities sitting on 3G hogging up all that lovely signal.

Serves them right for being so popular!

Patrick
Flame

Add Blackberry to that lawsuite with a slice of bold

Looks like Blackberry's new Crackberry Bold phone is facing the same 3G reception problems as the iPhone. Is it the telco carriers fault after all???

http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1381

Apple tops customer satisfaction poll as rivals' ratings slide

Patrick
Gates Halo

Vista is needed here!

Load Vista on the Apple notebooks instead of OS X and don't allow them to downgrade to Windows XP and then lets see how happy these Apple users will be in their satisfaction survey.

OpenGL 3.1 promise follows gamer revolt

Patrick
Dead Vulture

Don't let your kids read the first line of this comment

CAD companies are total c***suckers!

OpenGL was better than DirectX up until about DX8/DX9 mark, then DirectX surged ahead as being the better platform and keeping up with hardware changes. OpenGL provided the competition and motivation for Microsoft to keep on improving and releasing DirectX to compete for programmer adoption.

Now that the donkeyf*****s who mishandled for the second time (fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times _______?) have royally arsed up the OpenGL spec, delivering an almost final nail in the coffin, there will be no competition in the 3D space and no decent alternative until perhaps Intels massive number of cores rendering chips in the product development pipeline.

This is not good if you are a MS/DirectX fan. MS has a history of once dominating the competition of resting on its laurels and there is a real possibility that future DX development may slip from cutting edge support of the latest hardware features.

Blame to the GPU manufacturers? Huh? Do you even know how difficult the OpenGL mismanagement nightmare has caused GPU manufacturers in time, money, programmers and grief to develop OpenGL drivers for their products. None of them even deliver a fully compliant driver, its near impossible to reach such a goal. All the GPU vendors sans one gave up and never showed up through to the end of the delivering of 3.0 OpenGL. Hence the market is fragmented into:

Intel - the worst OpenGL drivers/support in the world. You write valid OpenGL code and the Intel Drivers just f*** the arse out of what you wanted to accomplish and nothing ever works, just give up if you own an Intel chipset of ever having any OpenGL support.

ATI - Semi decent OpenGL support, more so in the past, currently OpenGL support is getting worse.

nVidia - Currently the better of the GPU manufacturers for decent OpenGL drivers/support, even then its spotty across the product line up.

OpenGL is turning into the next GLide and if they don't fix a total f***wit release I double we will even see anything beyond 3.1 released and when it is abysmal uptake by any GPU manufacturer in the form of a driver.

Three-alarm fire bakes Apple facility

Patrick
Linux

Apple should have plenty of cash to fix the air conditioning unit.

The bloody mongrels just surpassed Google in market value and are creeping upwards close to toppling IBM in company worth.

For reference, some selected current market values:

• Microsoft (MSFT) - $255,648,204,000

• IBM (IBM) - $169,964,678,000

• Apple (AAPL) - $157,012,662,240

• Google (GOOG) - $156,392,862,560

• Cisco (CSCO) - $142,125,692,160

• Intel (INTC) - $135,658,860,000

• Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) - $111,866,423,760

• Nokia (NOK) - $97,746,699,520

• Research In Motion (RIMM) - $71,143,935,000

• Disney (DIS) - $59,257,501,500

• Dell (DELL) - $50,483,256,060

• Sony (SNE) - $38,423,938,420

• Amazon (AMZN) - $36,292,728,410

• Yahoo! (YHOO) - $28,020,673,800

• Adobe (ADBE) - $24,198,781,026

• Motorola (MOT) - $22,415,964,785

• RealNetworks (RNWK) - $1,002,688,900

• Palm (PALM) - $839,364,300

• Napster (NAPS) - $75,203,000

Patrick
Flame

@not Enterprise Device

Tell the banks, oh thats right, they are only for iTards to put only money in that is "invested poorly". They are also making decisions to get off their crackberrys and add a new drug of choice:

"HSBC could order 200,000 iPhones: Global banking giant HSBC is considering ditching the BlackBerry and adopting Apple's iPhone as its standard staff mobile device, a move that could result in an order for some 200,000 iPhones."

http://macsurfer.com/redir.php?u=348494

Patrick
Happy

@Steve Evans: chipset.

My vote is for a dodgy manufactured nVidia 8600 GPU chipset in a Macbook Pro =)

Of course though the story points to the HVAC (Air Conditioning unit) as the source. Probably made in China in the Factory next door to the one making iPods and Macs.

IT career virgins need a cherry on top

Patrick
Stop

The secret to IT

If its programming, you are going to be a commodity.

If it is administration based, if you go with MS you will just be another commodity.

If it has a certification, then you are caught up in an industry cash cow, and you definitely will be a commodity along with all the Tesco clerks who sign up for night courses and buy study books to help them pass tests with no knowledge or ability to do anything in the real world.

Bottom line is if you are in IT you are a commodity if you don't have specialists skills *and* a broad base of experience to draw upon.

If you are just starting out, my condolences.

Facts of life.

Microsoft to kill Windows with 'web-centric' Midori?

Patrick
Alien

Midori Sour on the Rocks Please

Midori already exists, it has for many many years.

Midori = a Web Browser

or perhapes

Midori = BSODs at the same time on a whole bunch of network machines?

If Midori is all MS has up their sleeves, they're screwed!

Asus readies iMac attack with all-in-one Eee

Patrick
Unhappy

It may look like a duck but it does not quack like a duck.

Nerds, you need a clue.

You can copy Apple all you want but it is the *user experience* that sells the Apple systems.

Just like all the iPhone competitors who are dogging in the marketplace, its the iPhone *user experience* that sold that platform.

Running linux or windows on a system does not give the same user experience as running Mac OS X.

This product will flop, you heard it here first.

Bill Gates has gone, what's his legacy?

Patrick
Gates Horns

Bill Gate's legacy is not CTRL-ALT-DEL, its B.S.O.D. Blue Screen Of Death

No seriously!

Thats why the current Mac OS X icons for windows computers you browse on the network are monitors with blue screens.

And if you are curious and zoom the icons large on Mac OS X you see the windows computers icons are in fact, you guessed it Windows Blue Screens Of Death.

Got to love the legacy. It lives on forever in the competition.

Trojan heralds OS X's 'new phase of exposure to malware'

Patrick
Happy

Another Source For Balance

"Like any Trojan horse, AppleScript.THT does not spread on its own but relies on user actions, such as downloading and launching, to infect a machine. Trojans can also be silently introduced on a computer if it's injected after a successful attack using another vulnerability, such as a browser bug.

Some researchers downplayed the threat. Thomas Ptacek of Matasano Security LLC, a New York-based security consultancy, said the ARDAgent vulnerability wasn't much of a concern.

"Who cares if someone busts root on your Mac?" Ptacek said in a Thursday entry on the Matasano blog. "It's a single-user system. I'll let you in on a Matasano state secret: if you break [my user] account, I'm in trouble. If you're malware and just trying to spread, or redirect my browser to phishing pages, you're wasting your time with this 'root' silliness."

Ptacek and others have noted that users can protect themselves by removing ARDAgent from its normal location, which is System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement, and archiving the application."

-- Cheers!

Patrick
Happy

Trojans have been coming out for Macs for years

#1. Not a virus, trojan

#2. Trojans have to be downloaded,

#3. Trojans have to be run by the user

#4. Trojans need the user to Authenticate into the computer for them to run with the users or greater rights of the account that has administrative privileges.

#5. Trojans then run some script commands.

#6. Just google OS X and Trojan and you will find a history of them, this is not the first, nor the last, nor groundbreaking, nor going to effect all the Macs in the wild.

Sorry, but you've missed the mark, but thats what you get for reading articles that have deliberately left out key pieces of information on their reports that clarify.

Still amusing to see all you Wintards just so wound up, so hurt from all the negative comments on Windows security that you leap headfirst into a Mac attack only to find out you've leapt out without any clothes on and hanging over the edge of a cliff in mid-air.

Keep the comments coming! Its a big smile generator, hence Mr. Smiley.

Apple's Snow Leopard to cut the bloat from Mac OS X

Patrick
Happy

World is changing, just what has happened with Snow Leopard and WWDC

Its a bad time to be sitting on the Microsoft fence kicking around waiting for the boys in Redmond to show us the way out of darkeness of Windows and poor parallel computing support needed for the future processors coming.

Also bad news for Microsoft, the new Vista ain't so bad campaign to make companies and users who are holding off for the next Windows 7 os instead of migrating to Vista isn't paying off.

Good news on the Apple front, massive parallel computing breakthroughs will make the next OS release next year (Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6) a parallel computing efficient multi-core using OS at both server level and client level to support all the new future processors coming down the pipeline. Added also will be full support for MS Exchange and MS technologies heralding the start of Apples attack to push into the corporate marketshare.

Good news also that Snow Leopard will be the first release of an OS without major features added and instead will have all the money and develoment focus be on making the OS faster and smaller and more efficient than ever. Expected are axing of PPC processor support binaries in both 32bit and 64bit, and of the two development frameworks/libraries, Carbon gets the axe and the newer Cocao becomes the sole framework.

Developers are jumping on in such great numbers that for the first time in history the WWDC apple developer conference was completely sold out well in advance. The above is the latest news released from the conference. Along of course with the new 3G iPhone being released for only $199!

Articles/Support:

Apple in Parallel: Turning the PC World Upside Down?" New York Times

Long URL: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/apple-in-parallel-turning-the-pc-world-upside-down/index.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint" RoughlyDrafted Magazine

Long URL: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/10/snow-leopard-server-takes-on-exchange-sharepoint/

"Apple previews OS X 10.6: Snow Leopard" APC Magazine

Long URL: http://apcmag.com/apple_previews_next_version_of_os_x__snow_leopard.htm

"Apple previews Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server" AppleInsider

Long URL: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/10/apple_previews_mac_os_x_snow_leopard_server.html

Kiwi airliners converted into giant iPod docks

Patrick
Unhappy

Has anyone seen an airline video screen?

I have flown on NZ Airlines, US Carriers, Australian Carriers, and UK Carriers. I have yet to find a seat-back airline video screen that wasn't total sheeeite quaity. Maybe if you have some other video playing device this might be good news, but I've seen my wifes ipod touch device and it beats watching an airline's screen hands down in quality, saturation, blacks.

I end up turning off (or trying to) airline screens, more annoying than anything, especially when they leak backlighting all over the place when you want to sleep (if you can on a plane).

Non-item in my book.

Windows XP SP3 sends PCs into endless reboot

Patrick
Heart

SP3 Worked Great on Mac

Luvin' it. SP3 installed and working - Bootcamp + Parallels.

Hatin' it. HP desktop at work is dead in endless reboots after SP3.

...Excuses are like noses, everyone has one...

Apple update trick triples Safari share

Patrick
Gates Horns

Trick? My Shiny Metal Bender the Robot!

Of course, for this big "trick" to work, the accidental/purposeful downloaders of Safari have to

1.) Run Safari

2.) Prefere it and keep running it instead of I.E./Firefox/Opera/Etc.

Now, if that is the case, then its saying something, *wink*

MS pulls plugs on XP SP3 mass launch

Patrick
Gates Horns

Never been a screw up this big on the Mac

Never been a screw up this big on the Mac, now only time will tell if Apple crocks up as badly as this with their OS patches.

Oddly enough installed SP3 on my PC and it is in the endless reboot/crash cycle.. now after many wasted hours of my life dedicated to Microsoft's crock up. I got it to the point where it cannot even find the program to check the disk during crash recovery =P

Further Oddly enough I installed it on Parallels VM on an actual Mac, and it has installed, crocked up once, rebooted and Parallels recovered it and it is working fine with no errors on the Mac =)

Go figure!

Only insanity would lead Apple to make a mobile chip play

Patrick
Happy

Only Blinders Would Make A Write Say That

So rushed, so full of that which makes flowers grow tall and green!

Apple is *not* interested in the company's products.

Apple is *not* interested in the company's customers.

Apple is interested in the IP and the engineering-talent of the company's employees.

Apple is going to have an interesting ride trying to acquire, because one of the larger customers is the US Department of Defense :-)

Apple buys chip maker

Patrick
Stop

Only for the IP and engineering-talent.

Apple is in it for the IP and engineer talent grab. They are not interested in the products, nor the customers.

Don't rush into conclusions until you sort it out.

Why is Ruby on Rails so darn slow?

Patrick
Flame

Another vote for Python and Django/Pylons

I have to say I have never understood why the world went Gaa Gaa for Ruby on Rails. Its just so slow and if you need to stray outside the framework then you have a lot of workaround coding to write.

I have found Python to be much faster, switching to Pythonic idioms increases the speed even more, and finally import psycho and go psycho.full() at the top of your code file and you are doing J.I.T. and just cranking up the speed like crazy.

I started with Ruby but switched to Python and have not looked back. I have scaled the build-in web servers in python web frameworks with Python written proxy load balancers and gotten terrific scaling from Python that leaves Ruby On Rails in the dust.

But alas, hey RoR has great marketing and they sold sand to the arabs so to speak. So who am I to complain? Just gives me an edge in my offerings over the RoR competition in the market place.

Peace out.

import antigravity

weeeeee!

Apple gets (slightly) less sneaky with Windows Safari play

Patrick
Stop

Look in the mirror.

How many times when reading the comments do I look back on my experience installing my Windows software and utilities and think about all the times all the crap-ware and spyware was installed and 9 times out of 10 it was not listed on the install menu. And the other 1 time out of 10 it was listed on a long list of ticked boxes and it itself was automatically ticked! and 9 times out of 10 I would catch it but that 1 time out of 10 it would sneak past me during a install/reinstall/update install.

Then I look at all the winging and moaning on this one Apple update program and have to sit back and smile....

Things that make you go hmmm :-)

Sun may shut off high-end MySQL features

Patrick
Gates Horns

Saw this one coming!

Wish I could say I have migrated off of MySQL, but still have a few projects on it. Moving them to PostgreSQL as soon as time permits.

I decided this the day the news broke about Sun buying MySQL because I knew this would happen. Good to see my gut feelings are correct once again.

Corporate Greed + Open Source Acquisition = Crippleware Soon Down The Track

Apple MacBook Air Early 2008

Patrick
Go

So the Air does not fit your needs?

Well the Air does *not* fit my needs.

I did not moan about it, I bought a Macbook Pro in all its 17" Hi Res LED option screen glory. Big is not issue for me with my 17" notebook backpack/shoulder bag/hand-carry bag convertible case and train ride to work every day.

I needed a desktop replacement, so my needs discounted the Air which I would look at if I am flying all over the place for work and need to lug a lot more luggage as well.

Im not fussed, back to my 24" 1900x1200 in a 17" screen ultra sharp goodness.

Only Ubuntu left standing, as Flash vuln fells Vista in Pwn2Own hacking contest

Patrick
Linux

Thank god I removed Windows and Installed Ubuntu on my Dell laptop.

Now I feel justified in my decision to remove the big MS bloatware OS from my Dell and put on Ubuntu as the sole OS last year.

Now I also feel nice installing Flashblock, NoScript, AdBlocker Pro into my Safari and never installing any Adobe Flash/Shockwave software ever when web pages nag and refuse to work.--- I simply never visit those web sites again.

Mac is the first to fall in Pwn2Own hack contest

Patrick
Happy

I call it first!

Flame war on! w00t!!!

Comcast admits it can do the impossible

Patrick
Thumb Up

The Bad and Ugly List

Bad ISP list (worldwide listings):

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs

GO Italians.. Gemini Project LiveCDs to test if your ISP is blocking you

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9355/Gemini+Project+LiveCD+Tests+Your+ISP+For+BitTorrent+Blocking

Apple unleashes monster patch batch on Mac faithful

Patrick
Gates Horns

I predict Webster to be the first El Reg reader to pop a vein!

I predict Webster to be the first El Reg reader to pop a vein both in the anticipation leading up to the results and finally popping over the published results of the contest.

Tool makes mincemeat of Windows passwords

Patrick
Happy

@alphaxion No BSD Kernel in OS X

@alphaxion

OS X is *not* based on the BSD microkernel. Everyone needs to get their facts right on this as they keep positng the same old rubbish again and again. OS X is based on a custom microkernel which is closely based upon the MACH micro kernel. The only thing in OS X related to BSD is a complete BSD subsystem layer (all the little BSD utilities and libraries.)

To quote Apple on this:

"This fully-conformant UNIX operating system—built on Mach 3.0 and FreeBSD 5—bundles over a hundred of the most popular Open Source products. You can shell out with bash, tcsh, ksh, and zsh; edit your code with emacs, vim, and nano; and build your projects using gcc, make, and autoconf.

Need something a little higher-level? Run your X11 apps side-by-side with native apps using X11R7 from X.org. Serve your web site with Apache 2.0 and PHP 5. Start scripting with Ruby and Python, and build web applications with the included Ruby on Rails framework. You can even measure your application's performance using DTrace from OpenSolaris."

Quake rocks Britain

Patrick
Alert

@ Anonymous Coward regarding Origins of Richter scale

So you trying to say the Yanks, NZ and Aussies have bigger packages than Brits??!

Patrick
Stop

7.3 for me

7.3 is the highest I experienced, Landers California.. Not pretty 4.9 wouldn't have woken me from my sleep. California teaches you a lot about earthquakes and how to go back to sleep while its still shaking if you are woken up =)

Apple updates laptop lines

Patrick
Happy

GPU memory did it for me.

One thing to note is the macbook pro comes with with dual-link DVI support and 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Big complaint I had before was mediocre GPU (although you can not truly say a good mobil replacement is available yet that won't do serious damage to battery life) but the best thing was you got the GDDR3 memory. A lot of the non apple laptops I looked did not include the GDDR3 memory but gave you more graphics memory overall resulting in older Macbook 17's "whomping" the Wintel laptops in display tests except heavy AA and textures that utilized the extra 256MB of graphics memory. But now its high speed graphics memory and 512MB of it in a laptop. I'm not a gamer, but I have to admit I want something semi decent.

Have to pay a "outside the USA" tax, but here you can salary sacrifice so you save 40% off the quoted price at the end of the year when you do your income taxes, so not bad overall. Snuck in an iPod Touch 16GB and a backpack as well (I doubt the tax man is tech savy).

The good thing about dealing with stores here is I had a discussion with the salesman over the remote and he said his system still showed it came with the remote and if it did not get to them with it he would throw one in for free. (made a happy customer with such a small gesture). Additionally they do all the upgrades to 4GB memory themselves so no Apple Built-to-order ram price gouging.

One thing I opted for the slightly smaller 200GB hard drive because it spins at the faster 7200 rpm which is 28% increase in speed which for me is very important because of the heavy virtualization I will be doing, running linux and Windows on the Macbook Pro. -- I'd recommend the same to anyone else venturing down this path.

First Mac laptop ever for me, as I've always owned and bought Dells, and I'm really exciting to give this thing a whirl.

Patrick
Happy

Penryn is still Core 2 Duo and Blue Ray is still po$$ible.

Penryn is just a minor CPU revision. These are Penryn based laptops.

The European Apple Stores online had some issues and didn't show proper specs. I doubt the Australia store gets better hardware than UK *wink* our specs are more inline with the US store.

And yes if you really want Blue Ray internal slim drive you can buy it. If you feel like spending a $1000 US Dollars and whatever the shipping is to get it to you. Slim internal trayless slot feeding Blue Ray drives are still way too expensive to include currently as an option to put in a Macbook from the get go for Apple but you are free to spend your own money to get one if it truly is worth life or death over:

http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

Major Linux security glitch lets hackers in at Claranet

Patrick
Stop

Windows in perspective.

Just for perspective, Vista SP1 fixes 551 bugs (rolling in 551 separate hot fixes) and 23 security updates alone. Just something to keep in mind while comparing the security problem of Windows to Linux or to OS X or to xyz alternative.

Apple cripples Sun's open source jewel

Patrick
Happy

TinyURL Fix

tinyurl giving headaches,

full url:

http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/Leopard_PT_DENY_ATTACH.20080122.html

Patrick
Happy

YAWN,

Nothing to see here, as with anything done with software, this has been easily fixed already:

http://tinyurl.com/263zh5l